


Questions of Family

by Energybeing



Series: Questions [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 84,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Energybeing/pseuds/Energybeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn tries to figure out where she belongs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to "Questions of Existence". This story won't make much sense unless you've read it. 
> 
> This story takes place during Season 2 of Warehouse 13 and late Season 1 of Buffy. I do not own either show, so don't sue me for using them.
> 
> This will probably be lighter than the prequel, but it still won't be light and fluffy.

James MacPherson was moving slowly for a man right outside the place where he was supposed to be incarcerated for eternity. The reason for his lack of speed was that he was supporting someone who was just getting used to moving again, after over a hundred years of being encased in bronze.

Of course, the fact that she had a hood over her head hardly helped HG Wells with her bodily coordination. But then, she hadn't seen anything for a century. She could stand to wait a little longer. It wouldn't do for her to damage her eyes by exposing them to light too soon.

MacPherson had long since ceased to be shocked that HG Wells was a woman. It had, after all, been over 15 years since he'd first talked to her. Even if this was the first time they'd actually met in the flesh.

Leena, the woman MacPherson had brainwashed to aid him in his escape, sat dumbly in the driver's seat of the car he'd forced her to park outside the Warehouse, waiting for MacPherson to either relinquish his control of her or give her orders.

After helping HG into the back of the car and making sure her hood was secured, MacPherson slid into the passenger seat. "Drive to Featherhead, my dear. Carefully. We don't want to draw any attention."

"We need to go to London." HG said in a hoarse whisper.

"Oh, I know." MacPherson said, licking his lips in anticipation of what was to come. "But it'll take you about a day to fully acclimatize to the world again. We can't make a move until then. Anyway, I want you to meet a colleague of mine there."

"This Featherhead... is it close?" HG rasped.

"Yes. Just a few miles." MacPherson replied.

"Do you not think they will follow?"

"No. I scrambled the Warehouse's systems. Right now, Arthur couldn't find us if he were right around the corner." MacPherson reassured.

"Good." HG said, sitting back. "Then you must tell me what I have missed. It has been many years since we last... spoke."

~*~

Claudia sat there, staring dumbly at her Farnsworth.

MacPherson had escaped. Claudia could accept that, he was by all accounts a cunning man. She could even accept that he'd brainwashed Leena somehow - perhaps even literally, given her brief cerebral inflammation.

But why would MacPherson release HG Wells from the Bronze Sector? Wells had been dead for at least 50 years, as far as Claudia's rather scanty knowledge indicated. What could he possibly know that MacPherson would risk everything to break him out?

Dawn nudged her shoulder, and Claudia made space for Dawn to sit beside her so that she too could see the Farnsworth. "What would MacPherson want with HG Wells?"

Artie stared at Dawn for several long seconds. Dawn became uncomfortably aware that this was the man that she had shot just a few days ago. Admittedly, she had been delirious at the time, and it had only been with a Tesla so there was no permanent injury, but still.

"So you're okay then?" Artie asked eventually.

Dawn nodded. She couldn't quite find the words to establish just how okay she was. She was no longer schizophrenic, after all.

Of course, her happiness was marred more than a little by the fact that Sunnydale was currently in the throes of a pretty large earthquake, and her sister was lying dead on her bed. Although the death was artefact induced and only temporary.

"Good. We can talk about you shooting me later. And Claudia, you can explain what you're doing with Dawn."

Claudia gulped (that sounded ominous) and tried to change the subject. "So, uh, about Wells?"

"I don't know anything. I can't even find the records of Wells being bronzed in the first place. MacPherson really did a number on these computers, almost nothing is working."

"Do you have Internet?" Claudia asked thoughtfully. "If you do, you can find if there's been any news about HG Wells recently."

"On it." Artie said. "And I'm not even going to ask why you've got goo in your hair." Then he hung up.

Claudia fingered her hair. "Hey, Dawn? Mind if I have a quick shower? I don't want this to get on your carpets. Plus it really stings."

Dawn shrugged. "Sure, bathroom's just down the hall."

"Thanks." Claudia said, standing up.

Someone knocked on the front door. "Do you want to get that, or shall I?" Dawn asked Buffy.

Buffy, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. Dawn sighed. "And I'm talking to my dead sister. Thank God I'm sane these days."

~*~

"Pete, Myka." Artie said in greeting.

"Any news?" Myka said anxiously.

"About MacPherson? No, not yet. Whatever he's planning, he hasn't put it into motion yet. But, a few months ago, someone broke into the HG Wells museum in England. Nothing was taken." Artie said brusquely.

"So MacPherson didn't find what he wanted and decided to go to the source." Pete surmised.

"Precisely." Artie agreed. "And you two have to stop him from finding out whatever he's after."

Pete nodded. Myka said "But what about Leena? What do we do if she - if she attacks us?"

Artie shrugged uncomfortably. "MacPherson must be using an artefact on her. I don't know which one. Try and capture her if you can - the artefact will probably be implanted in her brain, which would explain the Cerebritis, so we might be able to remove it."

"And if we can't capture her?" Pete asked.

Silence.

"Right." Pete said grimly, standing.

~*~

Dawn opened the door. "Hi. It's Xander, isn't it?"

Xander nodded. "Um, is Buffy home?" he said, words tumbling over themselves in their hurry to get out of his mouth.

Dawn began to shake her head, then changed her mind. "She's asleep." Which was, sort of, true. It just wasn't the kind of sleep most people woke up from.

Dawn had always known Buffy was special.

"Could you wake her up? This is kind of important." Xander said, shifting from food to foot nervously.

"Why? Is something wrong?" Dawn frowned.

"This is really just something I should tell Buffy."

"Slayer business?"

Xander goggled. "You - you know about that?"

Dawn nodded, smiling slightly. "Way before you did."

"Did - did Buffy tell you about the prophecy?" Xander stammered.

Instantly, Dawn's smile faded. "She did. What's happened?"

"Well, um, Buffy kind of yelled at Giles when she found out, said that she wouldn't stay around for this. And, uh, Giles has gone and gotten Angel and they're going through the sewers right now. He's going to try and kill the Master so that he can't kill Buffy. Ms Calendar told me. She couldn't stop him." Xander said hurriedly.

Dawn mentally reached for any of the vast amount of foreign curses she knew, utterly failed to find one, couldn't think of an English one and settled for saying "Crud."

Despite himself, Xander smiled. "I put it a little stronger than that when I heard, but sure. It is cruddy."

So. The prophecy said that the Slayer would die and the Master would break free. Well, the Slayer had died. Maybe this Giles would inadvertently release the Master.

"We have to do something."

~*~

Artie was trying to unscramble the Warehouse's computer systems when the automatic search protocols kicked in. He had a ping.

Normally, Artie would've ignored it. He was, after all, in the middle of a crisis.

But this was big news.

Apparently, there had been a large, prolonged explosion outside the CERN facility in Switzerland. Although no one had actually been caught in the blast, reports indicated that dozens of workers inside the building had died. Apparently, they had suffocated to death with their lungs filled with ash.

Artie knew the only artefact that could cause that. He'd seen it the last time it was used, fifteen years before.

The artefact was called the Phoenix. It protected the person holding it from fire, but caused nearby people to die instead.

The last person to use it had been MacPherson, when he had chosen to save his wife Carol. It had been that decision which had cost the lives of five firemen, and had led to MacPherson being incarcerated in a federal prison.

The thing was, the Phoenix was in the Warehouse.

Or, at least it should be. If it wasn't, that could only mean that MacPherson had taken it in his escape. Which meant that MacPherson wanted something at CERN.

It could be a distraction, of course. Except for one thing.

Joshua Donovan worked at CERN. Artie was pretty sure that MacPherson wanted him for something. He just didn't know what.

Regardless, Claudia had to be told. If MacPherson was after her brother, she needed to know.

~*~

Claudia was just drying her hair when her Farnsworth buzzed. She opened it, and Artie instantly filled her in on what had happened.

When Artie was finished, Claudia just sat there in silence for several seconds. Then she closed her Farnsworth and yelled "Dawn!"

There was no response. Which could mean only one thing. Dawn was gone.

Again.


	2. Chapter Two

HG stumbled and fell for what felt like the hundredth time that hour. She knew she shouldn’t be frustrated - after spending a hundred years as bronze statue, the fact that she moving at all was wonderful. But, for her, who'd always been able to do everything (or nearly everything, except the most important thing) it was incredibly irritating.

Still, she had progressed from having to wear a hood to merely wearing dark glasses. Soon, she wouldn't need even that. Soon, she could be out in the world again.

"Will you be able to make the flight in the morning?" Radburn asked, not looking up from his newspaper.

It wasn't from concern that he asked, HG knew. Unlike MacPherson, Radburn couldn't care less what happened to her. He was only in this for the power that the artefacts would bring him. He wanted to regain the power and prestige that he had lost when he'd been imprisoned for murder.

Of course, the plan wouldn't get him any of that back, but Radburn didn't need to know that. According to MacPherson, Radburn's contacts and funding had been vital in advancing the plan as far as it had gone. However, it wouldn't be long now until her plan came to fruition, and Radburn wouldn't be needed anymore.

"Yes." HG replied shortly, forcing herself up again and trying to summon the willpower to walk across the room. This time she would make it without so much as stumbling, she was sure.

~*~

As great as it was to have a communication device that worked anywhere on the planet, having a Farnsworth go off on the middle of a transatlantic flight was really rather awkward. Pete had to hastily pass it off as an outlandish alarm, and then hurry off to the loo so he could take the call.

Sometimes, he really understood why MacPherson wanted there to be artefacts out in the world. Then he wouldn't have to explain why he was taking calls 30,000 feet above sea level.

Still, at least he would get the news before Myka, which would doubtlessly annoy her. She always hated not being the first to know something.

Unfortunately, the news wasn't the kind that Pete liked to hear. Explosions, especially artefact-related explosions, and especially especially artefact-related explosions resulting in deaths were never numbered amongst Pete's favourite things.

"What do you want us to do, Artie?" Pete asked quietly. "We're on a plane right now, we won't land for hours, but when we do one of us could take a flight to Switzerland if you want."

Artie shook his head. "MacPherson would be long gone by then. No, I think he was after Joshua. He probably wants to use him and Leena as hostages or something."

"So how does Wells fit into it?" Pete asked, bemused.

"I don't know!" Artie exclaimed exasperatedly. "Don't you think I'd tell you if I did?"

"Sorry. Have you told Claudia yet?"

Artie nodded. "Yes. I think she might be in shock, though. She hung up as soon I finished speaking."

"Wait, she hung up? I thought she was at the Warehouse?"

"She's with Dawn, apparently. Although God knows how she managed to get there so fast."

"Don't you think that Dawn could be a-" Pete began to say, before trialling off. He had been about to say "help", because Dawn had been a help in capturing Radburn in the first place. Assuming that she was okay, Dawn might be able to be helpful again.

But then he realised that Dawn had been working on teleportation. On the night she'd disappeared, she had left Artie's car outside the B&B. They hadn't the faintest of ideas of where she had gone or how she had gone there, but they'd been too busy with Leena and then MacPherson's escape to try and figure it out.

"Hey hey hey!" Pete said excitedly. "Do you think Dawn figured out how to teleport?"

Artie rubbed an eyebrow thoughtfully. "It's possible. It would certainly explain a few things..."

"If we didn't know about it, MacPherson probably doesn't either. Artie, we could get the drop on him!"

Artie seemed reluctant to share Pete's enthusiasm. "I can always check Dawn's room. If the teleporter's anywhere, it'll be there."

"You do that. I'll tell Myka the news."

~*~

Claudia was fed up. Well, fed up and several more unsavoury emotions on top of that, but she was concentrating on the fed up-ness because it was the least demoralizing.

She'd teleported halfway across the US to bring Dawn an artefact to kill her sister (and she still didn't know why) merely because Dawn asked her to. And now, Dawn had run out on her again, this time without even bothering to leave a largely incoherent note behind.

Which kind of sucked (and other, ruder things) because Claudia could really do with someone to talk to about the fact that MacPherson may or may not have kidnapped her brother. And Dawn had always been her go-to girl for that kind of thing.

Claudia remembered telling Dawn once that, although she was technically sane, she wasn't really that much more stable that Dawn was. Well, Dawn might not be schizophrenic anymore, but running out on someone (twice) was hardly the actions of a stable person. Especially given that Dawn had just run out of her own house.

Claudia guessed that the only thing she could really do would be to hijack a car, drive to the airport and see if she could catch a flight that would take her somewhere in the vicinity of Univille. Dawn clearly didn't want her in her life, and Claudia was nothing if not obliging.

~*~

Giles was also fed up, and also feeling a cocktail of other emotions that he was choosing to repress. Creeping through underground sewers with a vampire (albeit one with a soul) immediately after an earthquake while looking for a master vampire was enough to make Giles more than slightly scared. Not that he'd ever admit it.

The fed up-ness came from the fact that a young vampire (hardly more than a child) had ambushed him from nowhere and knocked him over into a pile of - well, a pile of sewage. As if that wasn't bad enough (and the stench was almost as bad as physically being punched) the child-vampire might well have killed him had Angel not staked him instead.

Still, focusing on the fact that his suit was undoubtedly ruined and fit only for burning (or possibly use as a weapon of mass destruction) helped take Giles' mind of the fact that he was heading for the den of a master vampire prophesied to kill the Slayer.

Although, if this went on much longer, Giles might just prefer to fight the Master with both hands tied behind his back than wear his suit.

Of course, an earth quake punctuated this thought, and Giles had to face the possibility that he might die in a cave in before olfactory death kicked in or her met the Master.

~*~

Dawn followed Xander. From what she could gather from his babbling (did the boy have gills?) they were heading to the school library because there weapons there.

Dawn scratched the scars on her wrist. She wasn't really sure how she felt about being around a large quantity of sharp-edged objects.

"So, why didn't you wake Buffy?" Xander said, suddenly. "This is kind of her thing."

Dawn thought rapidly. "Uh, she isn't actually asleep. She skipped town for a few days, 'cause, well, she doesn't want to die."

Xander digested this. "Fair enough. Though I 'spose, of the Master does break out, it won't really matter. The Hellmouth opening is the end of the world anyway."

"What?" Dawn said.

"Uh, is that what as in "What did you say?" or "What are you talking about?" Xander asked, scratching his head.

"Tell me there's not seriously a Hellmouth." Dawn pleaded.

"You don't know about that?" Xander asked, bemused.

"I've kind of been out of contact for a while. Buffy must've forgotten to mention it."

"Understandable. Sometimes, whole minutes go by when I forget that we live on the mouth of Hell. But then I usually remember at around 3AM." Xander said drily.

Dawn glanced sidelong at him. "Quipping as a coping mechanism?"

"Yup." Xander said cheerfully.

"Cool."

~*~

Finally, Radburn gave up on his newspaper (there's only so long one can spend browsing the business section) and snapped "When are you going to stop? You've been trying for hours. You'll be able to walk when you can walk. Take a break."

HG stood stock still, very definitely not curling her hands into fists. "I can walk. I will walk, despite what you might think. Besides, there's still a while yet before I can stop." she said softly.

Radburn shrugged. "Suit yourself."

He got up and left, leaving HG to it. This baby sitting duty MacPherson had put him on was beneath him, and totally unnecessary in any case. It wasn't like HG was going anywhere.

HG took off her sunglasses, eyes squinting against the sudden light. Then she walked without stumbling over to the table where Radburn had left his newspaper.

"I can't stop yet." she said softly under her breath. "Not yet."

Instinctively, HG reached for something around her neck, but there wasn't anything there. For a moment, if there had been anyone to see, she looked unbearably sad. But only for a moment. Then she carefully smoothed all emotion from her face.

~*~

Angel stopped so suddenly that Giles nearly walked into him. "I don't understand." the vampire said, clearly baffled. "This should be the way to the Master's cave."

"What is it?" Giles asked, trying to peer around Angel's blocky form. While enough ambient light filtered through from above for Giles to see where he was going (more or less) he still had to rely on Angel's superior sight for the most part. The child-vampire had wrecked his torch. Or flashlight, as the Americans called it.

Bloody colonials, butchering his language.

"It's blocked off." Angel said, reaching out to touch the rubble blocking his path. "Must've happened in the earthquake."

"Is there any other way through?" Giles asked.

"Not that I know of." Angel replied. "This is the way I took."

"When, exactly, did you come down here?" Giles asked. As far as he knew, Angel hadn't visited the Master since Buffy had come to Sunnydale, and while he was hardly up to date on what the secretive vampire had done before that, he doubted that he visited his grandsire all that much.

"A long time ago." Angel said, with a tone of finality that indicated that he wouldn't be saying anything else. "But trust me, I remember the way."

Giles briefly contemplated the idea that Angel might be wrong, but decided that getting into a fight about how to get to the Master's lair was hardly the best use of their time. "Well, we'll just have to go around it then."

"There was a ladder to the surface a few yards back."

~*~

Claudia was driving along, minding her own business, when suddenly a couple of guys (one of them covered in - well, something disgusting, which Claudia didn't want to look too closely at) popped out of a manhole in the middle of the road.

Normally, Claudia wouldn't have cared in the slightest what two men got up to, but when they suddenly appeared in the road that she happened to be driving on, she happened to care very much.

Largely because she had to swerve out of the way in order not to hit them, leading her to crash her (stolen) car into a lamppost.


	3. Chapter Three

Claudia got out of the car. Thankfully, she hadn't been going that fast, and she had been wearing her seatbelt (since her parent's accident, Claudia had always been an exceptionally careful driver) so all she'd suffered was a little whiplash.

However, that didn't mean that she wasn't annoyed. "Hey! What is wrong with you guys? You can't just pop out of the sewers like - oh, what is that smell?"

Giles smiled sheepishly. "That would be me, I'm afraid. Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine, but you just made me crash my car!"

Giles was about to say something, but Angel got there first. "We've got to go, Giles. We don't have time for this."

"Yes, yes of course." Giles replied. "I'm sorry about your car, but there's somewhere that we have to be."

Under other circumstances, Claudia might've let them leave (it wasn't her car, after all) but she'd been having a bad day. "Hey! You can't just leave! You made me crash my car!"

"Giles, we have to go. If we don't, then Buffy might... you know."

"I'm sorry." Giles said apologetically. "But we really have to go."

Claudia let them go.

Sunnydale was a small town. There couldn't be that many people called Buffy in it. Especially not that many Buffys involved in nefarious activities that required them to be temporarily killed by an artefact. Or people wandering around in a sewer.

Dawn, if her second disappearance was anything to go by, didn't want Claudia in her life. Claudia could live with that (although she didn't like it, not at all) but she wasn't just going to leave town now. Not without some answers.

So she left the crashed car where it was and walked back to Revello Drive.

~*~

Dawn followed Xander as he led her into the school library. Willow and a woman that Dawn guessed was Jenny Calendar were already there.

"Hi, guys. Turned out Buffy's skipped town."

"I can't blame her." Willow said sympathetically. "But we need to figure out what to do about Giles."

"I can't think of anything other than grabbing some weapons and going after him." Jenny said. "Anyone have any other ideas?"

No one did.

"Hold on!" Dawn said, throwing up her hands. "You mean you guys actually help Buffy fight?"

"Well, yes." Xander said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Didn't you, when you lived in LA?"

Well. While there had been an overlap of a couple of months between Buffy finding out that she was the Slayer and Dawn finding out that she was schizophrenic, Dawn had never gone patrolling with Buffy. Dawn had no doubts that she'd get killed within five minutes, and Buffy had never asked her to go with her.

"No." Dawn said simply. "Fighting isn't really my thing."

"Then, no offence, but what are you doing here?" Jenny said bluntly. "We need fighters."

Another good question. Before Dawn had used Poe's pen, Dawn had always thought through absolutely everything before making a move (unless she was in the throes of a schizophrenic episode). She never made snap decisions. She guessed that was her schizophrenic tendencies showing themselves before the full blown hallucinations had kicked in.

But Dawn wasn't schizophrenic anymore, and apparently she was impulsive now.

"I don't know." Dawn said quietly.

Then she realised that, thanks to her sudden impulse, she'd left Claudia. Again.

"I've got to go."

"Strange girl." Xander said, after she'd gone.

"Yeah." Willow nodded. "I guess that's why Buffy never mentioned her."

~*~

Other than Pete trying to arrest the Wells impersonator, there weren't any incidents at the museum. But they knew that it would only be a matter of time.

Myka had decided that it would be best to keep the museum open for business, on the condition that the management were prepared to evacuate everyone at a moment’s notice. That way, Wells would just walk in the front door rather than be forced to try something sneaky.

Pete and Myka were waiting for something interesting to happen when Radburn walked in as though he hadn't a care in the world. Naturally, it was only about thirty seconds later that Pete had tackled him to the ground and handcuffed him.

The museum was evacuated, and the Warehouse agents began their interrogation of Radburn.

However, while Radburn was refusing to answer a single one of their questions, all three of them were suddenly levitated to the ceiling in a moment of stomach churning vertigo. They felt as though something immensely heavy was holding them in place. Breathing was difficult, and all but the simplest of movements were impossible.

Radburn smiled. "Looks like the cavalry has arrived."

However, as the minutes stretched past, and no one came in and the pressure didn't abate, Pete said sarcastically "Guess Wells just decided to leave you here, huh?"

~*~

Claudia was waiting for Dawn when Dawn got back. Dawn sighed in relief - she'd been afraid that Claudia might leave.

"What is wrong with you?" Claudia said. To Dawn's mild surprise, she didn't sound angry. No, she sounded more tired than anything else. "What's the point in asking me to come all this way only to run out of your own house while I'm in the shower?"

"I didn't run away from you." Dawn said truthfully. However, Dawn knew that she couldn't tell Claudia the truth. Vampires and prophecies? Yeah, that didn't sound crazy at all. Dawn had only recently stopped being schizophrenic. Telling Claudia that all that kind of stuff was real wouldn't do much to convince Claudia of that. So she had to lie.

"Why'd you run, then?"

So Dawn lied. She spun a tale of a frustrated fifteen year old, used to being the most popular girl in her school in LA with a rich father, having to move to a small town. And, in her frustration, said teenager turned to drugs. However, without a rich father to support such a habit, Buffy had quickly gotten in too deep. She owed the local drug dealer a lot, and couldn't pay. So Dawn had helped Buffy fake her death in order to get the drug dealer off of her tail.

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

Dawn shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, we'll, you try telling that to a panicking teenager coming down from a high. She'd have done something stupid otherwise."

Claudia didn't know whether to believe Dawn or not. Dawn's plans were normally more fleshed out than that. They made more sense. On the other hand, it was an improbable if plausible explanation.

However, Claudia couldn't tell if Dawn was lying. Over time, Claudia had come to know Dawn's every expression. She knew when Dawn was hiding something.

At least, she'd used to. Dawn's expressions were... different now. There were more of them, for a start, and her face was, in general, more animated than it had used to be. Claudia guessed that was to do with Dawn being cured. And while Claudia was extremely happy about that, it seemed that, consequentially, she didn't really know Dawn any more. 

"You could've knocked her out, or something, if you wanted to stop her from doing something stupid." Claudia pointed out.

Dawn tried to think of a reasonable explanation for what she'd done, in the context of the lie. Just as she was about to give up and say that she'd panicked as well, she had an epiphany. "Yeah, but people who are just knocked out have a tendency to wake up at inconvenient times. I stole quite a lot of money from MacPherson, when I took the pen. I could pay off Buffy's debts. That's what I did, when you were in the shower. I didn't want Buffy to come down and figure out what had happened. That, and I also wanted time to come up with a reason that she should stop taking drugs."

Okay. That made some sense. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dawn frowned. "Tell you what?"

"That your sister's a drug addict."

"I didn't know that she was until a few days ago. That, and after my overdose.... I figured that you wouldn't want to know."

Okay. That made sense. That was like Dawn, too. Dawn had frequently hidden her problems from Claudia so that Claudia wouldn't be troubled by them.

Claudia decided to accept what Dawn was saying.

~*~

Being pinned to the ceiling isn't fun. Being dropped to the floor without warning is even less fun.

Fortunately, Artie came in a few seconds later. "Hi. You've got Radburn, I see."

"Artie!" Pete groaned, standing. "How'd you get here so quickly?"

"You were right. Dawn's figured out how to teleport without an artefact. The mathematics involved are so far over my head that it was all I could do to figure out how to get it to work in the first place. That's why I'm late."

"I think Wells got what he wanted." Myka said.

"She." Radburn said simply.

"What?" Pete said irritably.

"Wells is a woman."

"Don't be ridiculous." Artie scoffed.

"I've met her. Talked to her. Her name's Helena." Radburn said. "And I know what she wants."

"What is it?" Myka asked.

"And why are you going to tell us?" Artie added suspiciously.

"Because she left me here to rot." Radburn snapped. "No one does that to me. No one!"

"Okay." Pete said slowly. "Card carrying villain ahoy!"

~*~

MacPherson couldn't get through an airport with a canister of antimatter. While there were certainly other ways that he could travel without all that rigmarole, MacPherson didn't bother. 

So, instead, he waited for HG to come and find him in Switzerland. He knew she would've ditched Radburn by now. Radburn, in revenge, would tell the Warehouse agents everything that he knew about his and HG's plan.

But MacPherson didn't care about that. Because that was all part of the plan. Radburn was just a decoy, ready to lead Artie and the others astray.

Leaving HG's goal open and undefended.

~*~

Giles and Angel found a way past the sewer blockage. Later, they found themselves in a large cave. Giles would've known that this was the Master's lair even if Angel hadn't said so.

Mainly because there was a skeleton lying sprawled in the middle of the cage with a massive cross sticking out where its neck should be.

It didn't take a genius to work out that the cross had shifted in the earthquake and killed the Master. But that didn't make sense. The Pergamum Codex was never wrong. Never. The Master had been supposed to kill Buffy.

But the Master was dead, which meant that he hadn't.

Something had gone wrong, somewhere.


	4. Chapter Four

"Okay, Artie, are you going to teleport us back home now?" Pete asked cheerfully.

"What?" Artie said, staring at Radburn but not really seeing him. Something about this situation just wasn't right, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

"Hello, Artie? You there? I was asking if you were ready to teleport us home."

"Oh. I can't. It's a one way trip, as far as I can tell. We'd have to build another machine at this end if we wanted to teleport back, and its way too complicated for me to do that." Artie replied.

Pete sighed. "Great. Another mammoth flight."

"On the upside, maybe it'll cure your jet-lag." Myka pointed out helpfully.

"Yeah, maybe. At least you'll sleep on the plane. I hope it's a different movie this time, at least."

"Alright. Let's get Radburn to the airport. We can sort out the flight details there." Artie said.

"How?" Myka asked. "Only Pete and I have tickets."

"Myka, we work for a beyond top secret organization. I think we can manage a couple of seats on a plane."

"Oh. Right."

"And as for you," Artie turned to Radburn "you can tell us everything you know."

~*~

"This doesn't make sense." Giles muttered, staring at the skeleton of the Master. "He can't be dead. That doesn't make sense."

"Maybe you translated the prophecy wrong." Angel suggested. Giles gave him a withering look. "Okay, maybe not."

"We need to go to Buffy's house. The prophecy said that the Master would kill Buffy, so if he's dead - maybe Buffy's somehow dead too?"

Angel looked at the skeleton, face grim. "If she is, then it's a real shame that the Master is dead. He deserves something a lot... slower."

"Indeed."

~*~

"So, what are you going to do now?" Claudia asked.

Dawn tilted her head quizzically. "I don't understand."

"I mean, now that you've got your sister's drug dealers off her back, what will you do next? Go back to UCLA?"

"I missed the deadline for readmission for this semester. Besides, I'm not exactly keen on going back and being known as the Schizophrenic Girl. My social life wasn't exactly great even before that."

Claudia wanted to suggest that Dawn come back to Warehouse with her, but she knew that Dawn had only been there because she'd thought that it had a better chance of curing her than staying at the psych hospital had. Unlike Claudia, Dawn had a family, options, and a life that wasn't solely built around the Warehouse. And given that Dawn had the choice, she didn't think that Dawn would want to go back there. Claudia didn't really want to offer her that, only to hear Dawn decline. She'd already been through something like that when Dawn had left the Warehouse last time. She didn't want to feel like that again.

Dawn, for her part, was hoping that Claudia would ask her if she wanted to go back to work at the Warehouse. While being around Buffy and Joyce was all very well and good, it just wasn't as exciting as working with artefacts, even in the very limited capacity that Dawn had managed before. More than that, now that she was sane her aura wouldn't interact with artefacts anymore, and she could do proper work. She could help, which was more than she'd be able to do stuck at home waiting for the next semester to roll around.

But Dawn wasn't really all that surprised when Claudia didn't make the offer. She had already imposed on her friend enough - more than enough. Claudia certainly didn't need someone like Dawn around. She wasn't surprised that Claudia had finally realized that.

The silence stretched on just a little too long for comfort. In order to fill it, Dawn shrugged and said "I don't know. I guess I'll figure out something."

"Yeah. I guess." Claudia replied. "I suppose you'd better wake up your sister before I go. I'll take the violet back to the Warehouse."

"Right." Dawn said, not moving. "Of course."

"Unless you'd rather I do it?" Claudia offered. "After all, I've already got the gloves and the bag."

"Sure. Sure."

However, just as Claudia picked up the violet, her Farnsworth went off.

"You'd better get that." Dawn said.

Claudia put down the violet and pulled out her Farnsworth. It would be no good having Buffy wake up and then ask what the strange telephone type thing Claudia had was. She could neutralize the violet later.

"Claudia, are you still in Sunnydale?" Artie asked the moment he saw Claudia.

"Yeah. I was just leaving, actually. Why? What's up?"

"Can you get back to the Warehouse as quickly as possible? I've got a feeling that something bad is going to happen."

"Is Pete vibing?"

"No, it's just my hunch."

"Well, I trust your hunches. I was going anyway. I'll be there in a few hours."

"Good." Artie closed his Farnsworth.

"Well, goodbye to you too, Artie." Claudia muttered.

"Sounds like you've got a crisis on your hands."

"Don't we always?" Claudia said with a half-smile.

"You need help?" Dawn said.

Claudia looked up sharply, surprised. Dawn looked surprised herself. Before, Dawn would've never said anything, left Claudia to get on with things and then bitterly regretted it. But, now, Dawn was impulsive.

"I mean, you probably don't want my help." Dawn said, putting a few strands of her in her mouth and chewing. "Not after all the things I've-"

"Yes." Claudia interrupted.

"Um, what are you saying yes to? My offer of help or the fact that you don't want it?" Dawn said, mentally bracing herself for Option B.

"I'd be happy to have your help." Claudia answered softly.

Dawn looked even more surprised. "What, seriously? After all the things I've done, you-"

"Dawn, after all the things you've done, because of them, I'll always be happy to have your help. But we need to go."

"Right. Yeah. Of course." Dawn said hurriedly. "You'd better get a car - feel free not to tell me that it's stolen. I'll deal with Buffy."

"Okay." Claudia picked up Napoleon's violet and put it in the neutralizer bag, looking away from the sudden explosion of sparks that erupted out of it. "It might take a few minutes for her to wake up. I'll wait for you outside."

Dawn smiled brightly at that last sentence. "See you there."

Then she settled down to wait for Buffy to come back to life.

~*~

"You know" HG said, sitting across the table from MacPherson "I don't like planes. They're so noisy, and when they go through turbulence... I thought that they'd be smoother by now."

MacPherson smiled at her. He supposed that the Wright brothers had probably just made their first heavier than air flight when HG had been bronzed. "Yes, well, I suppose that it won't matter soon."

"True. Do you have the... antimatter, did you call it?"

"Yes, and yes I do. Leena proved to be a most admirable distraction." MacPherson said, nodding at the woman in question who was sitting dumbly a few feet away.

"You know, if they recover her, they might gain access to our plan through the pearl. Your mind will be imprinted on hers."

"They'll only get echoes of me, my dear. Besides, I'll be long gone by then, and any fragments they recover will be entirely discredited by your own actions."

"I don't like that part of the plan." HG said. "I think it may turn Artie against me."

"Arthur won't trust you whether you go through with it or not. Besides, it's the only way. You know that." MacPherson said reassuringly.

"Yes. But I'm not keen on one of my first acts in this brand new century to be a murder."

"Don't look at it like that. It's necessary." MacPherson said gently. "Don't forget that. Besides, I don't mind."

~*~

"Dawn?" Buffy said sleepily. "What happened?"

"You dozed off." Dawn said. "I guess the stress must've gotten to you, or something."

"Yeah, I guess." Buffy said doubtfully. She'd had stressful nights before - being a Slayer certainly didn't make her immune from those - but she hadn't ever fallen asleep during one before. Quite the opposite actually.

"Listen, Buffy, I've got to go. A friend needs me. Don't do anything stupid, okay? Don't give the Master any opportunities to get you."

"A friend?" Buffy said, frowning. "The redhead? I remember, she came in and threw me a flower."

"What?" Dawn said, the very picture of confusion. "You must've dreamt that."

"What's so important that you have to leave now? I'd think my impending death would be enough to stop you from doing whatever."

"You're not going to die. You hear me? You're not!"

"Fine! But seriously, where are you going?"

"She's got this while family thing going on, and... it's complicated. I'll tell you when I get back, I swear."

"Okay." Buffy said, fighting back the urge to add if I'm still alive.

~*~

Dawn was just heading out when she saw Giles and someone that she assumed was Angel coming up the street.

"Dawn!" Giles called. "Is Buffy...?" he trailed off, unable to finish.

"She's upstairs." Dawn said, knowing that that wasn't what Giles was asking. "She's fine, by the way. Prophecy hasn't got her."

"Oh, thank God." Giles exclaimed, nearly collapsing in relief. He didn't even stop to notice that Dawn knew about the prophecy. He hadn't known that Dawn knew about all of that. "Can I?"

"Sure. She's just upstairs."

Giles and Angel rushed upstairs. Dawn closed the door behind them, then walked to the car parked there.

"Who are those guys?" Claudia asked blandly, not about to mention that she'd met them before.

"Buffy's librarian and her boyfriend."

Claudia's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Seriously?"

"Yup."

"The school librarian makes house calls?" Dawn nodded, not willing to explain what Giles really was. "Wow. Your sister is sure involved in some weird stuff."

You have no idea. Dawn thought, but aloud she said "It's not like that. He was the one who told me about her drug addiction. Apparently he's really observant."

"Of a cute blonde ex-cheerleader." Dawn elbowed Claudia in the ribs. "Hey! You've got to admit it’s a little creepy."

"If you'd met him, you'd know it's not like that. He's the most stuffy, repressed British guy ever."

Who just happens to creep around in sewers. Claudia thought. But she didn't say anything. It wasn't her business. She was just glad to have Dawn back.

She did, however, say "So, shall we head for the airport, see if we can catch a last minute flight?"

Dawn shook her head. "No. Drive to Joshua's lab at Caltech. I built a teleporter there, it'll get us to Univille faster."

"Seriously? How did you even get a key?"

"Joshua gave it to me." Dawn said, and then told Dawn about her trip to Geneva to get it so that she could gain access to Josh's lab so that she could easily go between her weekly appointments with Greene and then back to the Warehouse.

Claudia was happy that Dawn was involving her in something, even though it was weeks after the fact.


	5. Chapter Five

"So, you're saying that MacPherson and Wells are trying to break into the Escher Vault in order to retrieve and artefact of Wells' that will supposedly grant her great power." Artie repeated.

"Yes." Radburn said.

"Artie, that doesn't make sense." Myka said. "When MacPherson escaped, he had full access to the Warehouse. He could've easily gotten into the Escher Vault then."

"What is the Escher Vault, anyway?" Pete asked. "Don't bother to tell me that it's in the manual, we all known I'm never going to read that. Just tell me what it is."

"Actually, it's not in the manual." Artie replied. "It's where the personal effects of people that get bronzed go. But there shouldn't be any artefacts there, they're supposed to be checked. Everything there is normal."

"Well, obviously HG hid something there somehow." Myka surmised. She turned to Radburn. "What is it?"

Radburn shrugged. "MacPherson told me that it was vastly more powerful than the Lenape artefacts, but that it was imprinted on Wells. Apparently only she can use it."

"Is that possible, Artie?" Pete asked. "I thought that artefacts could be used by anyone."

"Usually, that's true. But there are artefacts - like Poe's pen - that only people of a certain temperament can use. There are a few cases of artefacts that can only be used by one person at a time, and that bond is supposed to last until the artefact’s user dies. That might explain why no one knew that it was an artefact - it would've only worked for Wells."

"But what good would it have done you?" Myka asked Radburn. "If you can't use the artefact, why would you want to help Wells get it?"

"Because, with it, Helena could crack the Warehouse wide open. I could take my fair share of artefacts, and you people wouldn't have been able to stop me." Radburn replied.

"Well, you would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for us meddling kids." Pete quipped.

~*~

Dawn was staring at her teleporter. While a large part of the machinery was excessively complicated and something that looked like it belonged in a futuristic science fiction film, that wasn't what was bothering Dawn. What was bothering her was the small box on the computer screen that was asking her to input the coordinates of the location she wanted to teleport to. She knew she wanted to go to Leena's, but she couldn't remember the coordinates.

Except the only time that Dawn had ever forgotten a number was when she had been dying from a drug overdose. She'd input these coordinates many times, surely enough for her to remember them.

But she couldn't. It didn't make sense.

"Um, Dawn?" Claudia nudged her friend. "What are we waiting for?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, if you don't remember why we can't go, can we just go?"

There is some correlation between people with mental disorders and intellect. While this isn't nearly as high as the media commonly portrays (not every autistic person is a savant, and not every brilliant scientist is autistic) the correlation did exist. There was, for example, a fair bit of evidence that Isaac Newton had bipolar disorder. Einstein was dyslexic, and his son had schizophrenia. Nikola Tesla had OCD.

Dawn had been a brilliant mathematician and physicist. She'd been able to mentally hold vast strings of numbers in her head and solve several complicated equations simultaneously. She'd also been schizophrenic.

Now she wasn't. The question was: was she still a genius?

"Quick, Claud, ask me a question!" Dawn said urgently.

"Um, are you absolutely sure you're sane now? Because at the moment it doesn't really seem like you are..."

"Yes, yes, I know I'm not the Key and that monks didn't make me. I meant a maths question."

"Uh, okay... how about the square root of 27?"

Normally, Dawn could've worked the answer in less time than it would have taken her to say it. Except, now, all she could come up with was "Between five and six."

"Technically correct, but you should really be more specific than that. But why are we doing maths now?" Claudia asked, concerned.

Dawn pushed her thumb against each of her fingers in turn. "I don't know the answer, Claud!"

"So? Neither do I, not without a calculator." Claudia replied. Then realisation dawned. "Oh."

"Exactly."

"You don't normally need a calculator."

"Exactly. What do I do, Claud? I'm normal now. I- what do I do?"

"Look, Dawn, we'll work it out, but can we get to Univille now? We can talk there."

"Right. Um, you'll have to look up the coordinates. I can't remember them."

"But you never forget a - oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay then." Claudia sat down at the computer, and a few seconds later she had found the coordinates. "Let's go."

~*~

At a private airstrip somewhere in Switzerland, MacPherson and HG prepared to board an illegally obtained plane. While HG went inside, gritting her teeth in anticipation of the long flight, MacPherson turned to Leena. "Come here, my dear."

Leena did so. "Tilt your head to left, will you?" Leena did so.

MacPherson held out a hand and concentrated. A moment later, a pearl fell out of Leena's ear and into his waiting palm. The blank, vacant look that had covered Leena's face ever since MacPherson had taken complete control of her dropped away. "Wh-what's going on?"

"That's none of your concern, Leena." MacPherson said softly. "Oh, and when you see Arthur, please tell him that we lied to Radburn. That megalomaniac hadn't the faintest idea what we're up to."

Then he Tesla'd her and got into the plane, leaving Leena unconscious in the middle of nowhere.

~*~

Claudia was driving Artie's car to Warehouse when she asked "How do you say hello in Unami?"

Dawn shrugged. "I don't know. I can't remember. All I can remember is some basic high school French."

"That's good, isn't it?" Claudia said. "I mean, I know how much knowing all those languages bothered you. Maybe it's a good thing that you've forgotten them."

"Yeah, but I'm ordinary now."

"Well, that's better than having to lock yourself in your room so that Abomination doesn't get you." Claudia pointed out.

"Yeah, but what help can I be at the Warehouse now? I'm not an agent like Pete or Myka, or some massively experience old guy like Artie. I'm not even a tech whizz like you. I'm just an average twenty-year-old. I'm not even going to get through UCLA like this. I don't know enough."

"Seriously? I'd have thought that they'd have taught you everything you needed to know."

"Yeah, but every aspect of physics I learnt was helped by the fact that I could easily understand the mathematical principles behind it. Now I don't."

"Maybe you can use the pen to get just that part back, but leave the schizophrenia behind?" Claudia suggested.

Dawn shook her head. "I can't use the pen anymore. I guess I'm not crazy enough these days."

"Being normal isn't so bad."

"How do you know? You spent the last couple of years thinking you were crazy and then working with magical artefacts. You're hardly normal." Dawn snapped. Then she felt guilty for saying it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It was too harsh."

"At least this time you didn't break a window and throw all your clothes out of it." Claudia said mildly.

Dawn flushed. "You didn't tell me to go to Hell either."

"Well, look at us! We're maturing."

"Yeah, maybe we can stop stealing each other's shampoo this time."

Claudia smiled, and didn't point out that Dawn had just implied that she was staying.

~*~

"Why'd you free the girl?" HG asked suddenly.

MacPherson shrugged. "Why not?"

"We could've used her to get in."

"Getting in isn't vital. Your locket isn't essential." HG looked at him sharply. MacPherson chuckled. "What? Did you think I didn't know about that? I did some research since the last time we spoke, all those years ago. I know why you want to get into the Escher Vault."

"Then why are you helping me?"

The smile dropped from MacPherson's face as though it had never been there, leaving a bleak and grim expression in its place. "I know what comes after this. I have no objection to you taking some personal time before it all happens."

HG didn't ask if MacPherson had contemplated that she might not go through with the plan. She knew he hadn't. He thought that she thought the same way he did, wouldn't even contemplate the possibility that she might think otherwise. Not after the thing that they'd both seen, the experience that had first brought MacPherson to her.

HG's hand went to her throat to play with a locket that wasn't there.

~*~

Artie sat back in his plane seat, trying to tune out Pete and Myka's bickering. He was trying to think.

HG had clearly been at the museum. She must've have gotten whatever she was looking for. She'd trapped Pete and Myka on the ceiling and had full control of the museum.

Yet she'd left Radburn behind. That didn't make sense. She'd had the chance to retrieve Radburn, but hadn't even made an effort. She had to know that he would turn on her for that.

There were two reasons Artie could think of for HG to do that. First, she was so confident that her plan would succeed that she didn't feel the need to cart Radburn around anymore. That was certainly possible - she and MacPherson had been ahead of them at every step so far. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect her to be a little cocky.

Or maybe Radburn was a decoy, and HG was after something completely different. That too was possible - something about having an artefact in the Escher Vault didn't ring true. There were extensive checks in place to prevent exactly that from happening.

The question was, which option was correct? More importantly, could Artie stop HG either way?

~*~

Leena woke up with a pounding headache, wondering what was going on. Last thing she remembered, her brain had been swelling, she'd been dying...

Except she remembered a rather vivid dream in which she'd blown up, over and over again. And something about Tesla-ing Artie?

Suddenly, Leena realised what must have happened. Groggily, wincing with pain and wondering whether her head would explode, Leena forced herself upright.

A few feet away lay a Farnsworth. Leena crawled over to it.

Well, that had been strangely considerate of MacPherson.


	6. Chapter Six

As it turned out, non-schizophrenic Dawn wasn’t really cut out for sitting still for long periods of time. Which was markedly different from how she used to be, when she could quite comfortably sit still and do nothing much for extended periods of time. She would’ve had no trouble waiting for MacPherson and HG to show up.

Now, though, every couple of seconds she would say something to Claudia, who was busy trying to sort out the mess MacPherson had made of the Warehouse’s computer systems. For a time, Claudia was fine with that, because she’d missed Dawn during the time she had been gone. On top of that, Claudia suspected that she had played the same role Dawn was playing now when Dawn had been calculating how to teleport.

After a while though, when Dawn made her completely lose her train of thought when she was unravelling a particularly knotty problem, she decided that enough was enough. “Hey, Dawn? I know you’re annoyed that you’re not a genius anymore, but on the upside you can explore the Warehouse now. So why don’t you, um, go do that?”

Dawn knew she was being irritating. She couldn’t help it. Waiting was boring. And given that the last time Dawn had gone through the Warehouse she had been leaning heavily on an IV drip and recovering from a drug overdose, she welcomed the opportunity to wander through the aisles without her schizophrenic aura accidently leading to her being stuffed into a mirror with a psychopath.

So she left Claudia to her computer and went for a walk.

However, Dawn quickly found that, while artefacts could do numerous wondrous things, the vast majority of the things in the Warehouse were more of the gruesome kind of wonder. She supposed that that was why they were here, rather than out in the world. Agents only brought in the most dangerous of artefacts.

So, Dawn began to wonder further through the aisles, only looking at things that looked like they would be interesting and wouldn’t cause her to die in some cruel and unusual way.

Dawn had just finished looking at an artefact that caused feelings of euphoria in whoever held it (she could’ve used that when she was schizophrenic) and walked around the corner when she suddenly found herself face to face with MacPherson.

He seemed just as surprised as she was, which was fortunate because it meant that Dawn had enough time to get over her shock, realise that she had neither Farnsworth nor Tesla, and make a run for it.

Of course, thanks to Dawn’s absolutely fantastic luck, the direction she chose to run in was blocked by a pale woman with dark hair wearing some strange kind of corset. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Artie had contacted them and told her and Claudia that Wells was a woman, she might have suspected that she was having a hallucination. It was that unexpected.

“Are you ready?” MacPherson asked. It took Dawn a few seconds to realise that he wasn’t talking to her.

“Uh, if you're asking if she’s ready to do something unspeakable to me, the answer’s no. Um, please say the answer’s no.” Dawn said.

MacPherson didn’t reply. Wells stared at Dawn with an inscrutable expression, absently toying with a golden locket around her neck. Then, in the space between one second and the next, she was gone.

Dawn whirled around, looking for her. She didn’t see her, though.

She did, however, see MacPherson on the ground gasping for breath as the diamonds that nullified the effect of the painite in his blood lay strewn in front of him. Before Dawn could decide whether she should try and help MacPherson or run as far as she possibly could, he flushed red. Not the kind of red that would be caused by blood rushing to his face, but what you might imagine flesh would look like when it was on the very brink of bursting into flame. After that, he kind of fell apart, turning to ash which drifted on the air before landing on the ground.

His combustion wasn’t the thing that struck Dawn most about his death, though. The most striking thing had been the expression on his face before he had died.

Dawn wouldn’t have expected someone who had just been murdered by the very person he had worked so hard to break out to look quite so triumphant.

~*~

It took Dawn quite a while to find her way back to Artie’s office. She hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to where she had been going on her walk. Claudia was still staring at a screen and typing when she got back.

“Hey, Dawn. How was your first proper visit into the Warehouse?” Claudia said, not looking up.

“Oh, fine.” Dawn said airily. “Right up until the point when MacPherson and Wells showed up.”

“That’s nice.” Claudia said absently, only half listening. It took a couple of seconds before she processed what Dawn had said. When she did, she spun around in her chair. “Wait, what? You saw them? Are you okay? What happened?”

Dawn had been wondering that herself. She still didn’t entirely understand. If it hadn’t been for MacPherson’s triumphant expression, it would’ve seemed like a perfectly normal betrayal. After all, it wouldn’t be the first one the pair had perpetrated. Radburn was being brought in even now. She suspected he would probably end up being Bronzed.

But people didn’t normally look happy when they were betrayed. Which meant that there was something else going on, something other than the plan to recover the artefact from the Escher Vault like Radburn had said.

“I don’t really know.” Dawn replied. “I was walking, and then there was suddenly MacPherson. A couple of seconds later, Wells showed up – she really is a woman, by the way – and then she killed him.”

“Wells killed MacPherson?” Claudia asked, surprised. “Why?”

Dawn shrugged. “Not a clue.”

“Do you think she got through the Vault?”

Dawn remembered the locket that Wells had been playing with. It hadn’t looked like an artefact capable of breaking open the Warehouse, but then Poe’s pen didn’t look like it could cure schizophrenia, either. “I guess so. I don’t think she would’ve left if she hadn’t.”

“We need to call Artie.” Claudia said decisively.

~*~

Sometimes, Artie wondered what the point of being part of a top secret organization was, if he couldn’t occasionally brandish a badge to explain why he was receiving calls from an aeroplane. Of course, he knew that keeping the Warehouse as low profile as possible was for the best, but he didn’t like flying at the best of times, and walking down the aisle always reminded him just how high up he was. Besides, it always seemed so undignified to take calls from a toilet.

Of course, Artie forgot all of this the moment Claudia told him what had happened.

“You’re sure?” he pressed. “You're sure that’s what happened?”

Claudia nodded. “Yep. Dawn saw the whole thing.”

“Wait, Dawn’s with you?”

Claudia paused. She and Dawn had decided that it might be for the best if Claudia kept Dawn out of it. She wasn’t sure how Artie would react to finding out that Dawn was back at the Warehouse. She had Tesla’d him and made off with an incredibly powerful artefact, after all.

Well, Claudia could hardly hide her friend’s involvement now. “Um, yeah. She came with me from Sunnydale. She had a teleporter in LA, its how we got here so fast. She wanted to help.”

Artie rubbed his face tiredly. “I don’t want to ask this, but-”

Dawn’s face appeared on the screen before he had a chance to finish the question. “Yes, I really saw it. MacPherson’s dead, and Wells killed him. I wasn’t hallucinating. I'm completely sane now. I know I'm not the Key.”

“Right. Okay. So Wells has some kind of powerful artefact that we know nothing about, and she’s ruthless enough to kill the person who broke her out. Wonderful.” Artie grumbled.

Dawn didn’t tell him about MacPherson’s dying expression. She suspected that he didn’t entirely trust her judgment (she could understand that, even though it was incredibly frustrating) so if she brought up something completely subjective that completely changed everything assumption they had about the plan Wells and MacPherson had cooked up, Artie would probably dismiss it out of hand.

“Anyway, I’d better go and tell Pete and Myka the news.” Artie said before closing his Farnsworth.

~*~

Leena was finding it difficult to move. She supposed that after having spent some time with her everything movement being controlled by MacPherson, moving of her own volition was difficult. On top of that, she was recovering from being Tesla’d and she felt as though her brain was trying to force itself out through her ears. She was pretty certain she passed out at least once when she crawled the few feet to the Farnsworth. On the plus side, she didn’t feel dizzy or dazed, so she hoped that her Cerebritis was sorting itself out, now that the artefact that had caused it was no longer buried in her brain.

Eventually, though, she made it to the Farnsworth. It took her a great deal of effort to open it and contact Artie.

“Leena?” Artie asked, shocked. “Are you – what's going on?”

Leena tried to sort through the hazy memories she had of the last few days, when she had been under MacPherson’s control. Then, when she had worked out what she wanted to say, she tried to speak. It took her a couple of tries before she actually managed it. “’m somewhere in Switzerland. MacPherson took something, an artefact, out of my head, left me a Farnsworth.”

That didn’t make sense. Artie had expected MacPherson to use Leena as leverage. He could have used as her as collateral if his plan hadn’t gone as he expected. There was no reason for MacPherson to set her free. Especially not to leave her a Farnsworth. She could’ve easily ruined his plans.

“Artie. MacPherson said that they lied to Radburn.” Leena said with difficulty. “Whatever he told you, it’s a lie.”

Okay. So releasing Leena was part of MacPherson’s other plan, which had probably been derailed by Wells killing him. Artie couldn’t imagine what the plan could’ve been that required them to know that it wasn’t the decoy plan they'd gone to such lengths to set up, though.

“Leena, stay there. We’ll send someone, a doctor, to help you.” Artie said reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay. Just hold on.”

Leena didn’t bother saying that she wasn’t going to go anywhere. She didn’t have the energy. So she just lay there, staring at the sky, and in what seemed like an absurdly short time later Dr Calder showed up.

~*~

After they called Artie, Claudia went back to her computer. Dawn didn’t hassle her this time, because she had a puzzle to preoccupy her.

Claudia, though, couldn’t quite focus on what she was doing. After a couple of minutes, she asked the question that was weighing on her mind.

“What are you going to do now, Dawn?”

“What?” Dawn replied, not really understanding the question.

Claudia spun her chair around. “I mean, this thing with MacPherson is over. At least for the time being. So what are you going to do?”

Previously, Dawn had spent weeks agonizing over that very question. Stay at the Warehouse, or go home? Artefacts or demons? Buffy or Claudia?

However, her impulsive following of Xander had resolved something in her mind. Buffy’s world was physical, based around fighting. Dawn had never been comfortable with that sort of thing. She was considerably more of a cerebral person. She liked puzzles, even if she no longer had the intellect she had once had.

There were puzzles here. Puzzles galore. At the Warehouse, she could help, even in only a small capacity. She couldn’t fight battles alongside her super-powered sister.

“I’d like to stay here.”

Claudia smiled radiantly.


	7. Chapter Seven

Buffy didn’t have a great deal of experience with prophecies. Given that the very first one she had ever encountered had predicted her death, she didn’t really want to encounter any more of them.

However, when Giles and Angel had shown up and announced that the Master was dead, Buffy had thought that a prophecy should be more accurate than the one she had overheard Giles talking about. Otherwise it wasn’t really a prophecy, was it? Or at the very least it was only a prophecy on the same level as the kind that leaders of cults generally spouted, which never, ever came true. She wouldn’t have thought that Giles would get so worked up about something like that.

Buffy agreed with Giles when he had said that there was something else going on here. However, Giles had no idea what it might be, and if the-library-on-legs didn’t, then it was a safe bet that she wasn’t going to figure it out either. She wanted to speak to Dawn about it, when she got back from helping her friend out with whatever it was that she needed help with.

Speaking of which, since when did Dawn even have friends? She’d been teased throughout high school for being a socially awkward genius, and UCLA hadn’t been much better. Buffy had been the only person that Dawn was actually close to.

Except that girl at the psychiatric hospital. The one who had been there during Buffy’s only visit. Claudia, that was her name. Buffy didn’t really know anything about her, but she and Dawn had seemed to get on fairly well, at least as much as Buffy had seen during the handful of minutes she had been there.

Buffy assumed that both Claudia and Dawn had been more or less cured of whatever afflicted them, only Claudia had slid back somewhat and Dawn had gone to help her out. Which was nice of Dawn, given that Buffy would imagine that Dawn would want nothing whatsoever to do with that kind of thing, now that she was cured.

So Buffy waited for her sister to get back.

~*~

Claudia and Dawn waited for the others to return. Leena arrived first, half leaning on and half being carried by Dr Calder. Neither of them were entirely sure how they managed to get back before Artie and the others, given that they were on a plane on the way home whereas Leena had been in Switzerland.

Claudia had suggested that the Regents had a version of Dawn’s teleporter, which would explain how Mrs Frederic did her disappearing thing. Dawn suggested magic, and she was only half joking.

The others arrived a few hours later.

Artie, as soon as he came into the office, turned to Dawn and asked peremptorily “Can you describe Wells?”

“Whoa, Artie.” Myka said. “Can’t this hold on until tomorrow? It’s the middle of the night. We can sort this out after we’ve had a good night’s sleep, right?”

“Sleep? How can you even talk about sleep? You slept on the plane there and back. You should have enough sleep to keep you going for weeks.” Pete said grumpily. He appeared to be having difficulty keeping his eyes open.

“It’s not my fault you can’t sleep on planes.”

“Anyway, Artie.” Claudia said, interrupting the bickering. “Macpherson fried our computers. It will take me a while to get it fixed. We can't do anything to find Wells right now anyway.”

Artie muttered something that sounded like “Fine.”

Pete instantly began to go back to the B&B. Dawn wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t fall asleep along the way.

“Actually, can I ask something?” Dawn said, before she let the chance slide through her fingers.

Pete groaned loudly and turned back. Myka elbowed him in the ribs.

“Say, if someone did something, like, um, shoot Artie and then leave the Warehouse, could that person, um, re-join the Warehouse?” Dawn said a little self-consciously, looking at a spot about six inches above Artie’s head.

“Yes.” Myka said, without hesitation. “If this… hypothetical person wanted to come back, then I'm sure she could.”

Claudia grinned, and Dawn had the sudden urge to hug Myka.

Pete seemed to have fallen asleep standing up. Myka prodded him in the ribs again. He looked up with a start. “Yeah? What? I was listening, I really was. Um, what were we talking about?”

“Dawn wants to re-join the Warehouse.” Myka said a little exasperatedly.

“Oh, cool. Welcome back, Dawnie.” Pete murmured. “Can I go to sleep now?”

“I’d better drive you back.” Myka said. “I don’t want you causing any accidents.”

Dawn looked directly at Artie. He was the important one, she knew. It didn’t matter if the other Agents wanted her back. If Artie didn’t give her his seal of approval she wouldn’t ever get anywhere. She just hoped that he didn’t take quite as long as he had the first time.

“I’ll have to talk to Mrs Frederic.”

“Why?” Claudia asked. “She hasn’t committed any crimes against the Warehouse. And she, uh, wasn’t exactly in her right mind.”

“She stole and used an incredibly powerful artefact, Claudia.” Artie reminded her. “In case you’ve forgotten, that is diametrically opposed to everything we stand for.”

Before Claudia could respond, Dawn said “Oh, hell.” She’d just realised that she’d left Poe’s pen in Sunnydale, half way across the country. She’d never been this far away from it before. She didn’t know if it would continue working across such a great distance. What if it didn’t, but she couldn’t use it again when she got back? She could be schizophrenic for good. “I’ve got to get back. Now. The pen’s still at home.”

Artie frowned, but Claudia’s eyes widened as she realised the same thing Dawn had. “Artie, is Dawn’s machine still in her room?”

“Her teleporter? Sure, but-“

“’kay, cool. See you later.” Claudia said over her shoulder as she and Dawn left.

“Okay.” Artie mumbled to himself. “I am definitely going to have to ask them what that was all about.”

However, instead of going back to the B&B and going to sleep, Artie went down into the medical section. He wanted to check on Leena, see how she was doing. Besides, he expected that Mrs Frederic would show up at some point.

Leena was unconscious, and she had an IV drip attached to her arm. She had electrodes on her forehead. Calder looked up from a monitor as Artie arrived and flashed him a smile before looking back. “How’s she doing, Vanessa?” he asked gently.

“Well, the swelling in her brain is going down, now that whatever Macpherson put in there is gone. That isn’t going to cause her any problems, although she might get dizzy and have headaches occasionally. However, she is also badly dehydrated. I doesn’t look like Macpherson remembered to feed her or give her water. That’s what the IV bags are for. On top of that, the artefact did something to her muscles. I'm not entirely sure what, but it seems to be fading now the artefact’s gone. Just not as fast as I would like. I would advise that she not move for a few days, at the very least.”

“The pearl of wisdom.” A voice said from behind them. Artie didn’t have to turn around to know that it was Mrs Frederic. Even though he had been expecting an appearance, the lack of warning still made him jump slightly. Calder didn’t move at all.

“Of course!” Calder exclaimed. “I should’ve realised. Of course the muscular degeneration is only temporary. She’ll be fine, Artie. Just give her a few days and Leena will be as good as new.”

Artie turned to Mrs Frederic. “Pearl of Wisdom?”

“It’s an old Oriental artefact. It burrows into the brain through the ear. I'm not sure where James got it, but it would be perfect for his purposes. Leena wouldn’t even know that she was acting on Macpherson’s commands.” Mrs Frederic expanded.

Artie nodded. “Until Dawn put him in a pocket dimension. I wondered about that.”

“Evidently, Leena, under James’ commands, withdrew the artefacts disguised as Claudia.” Mrs Frederic said, looking at Leena. “It appears that Dawn was right after all.”

“She was?” Artie asked, baffled. “About what?”

“She told me that Claudia couldn’t have done anything. Something about a mirror. I didn’t press her at the time, because she was recovering from an overdose, but I do need to discuss it with them.”

“Dawn’s probably back in Sunnydale by now.”

Mrs Frederic looked at him. If it had been someone else, Artie might’ve thought that they were surprised, but this was Mrs Frederic. She did mysterious and imperious just fine, but never surprised. “Sunnydale? In California?”

“Yes. Dawn created a teleporter. It works without artefacts. Brilliant design. I haven’t the faintest idea of how it works, but it is very effective.” Artie explained.

Apparently, though, it wasn’t the revelation that Dawn had created a machine capable of transporting her half way across the country that had made Mrs Frederic appear to be expressing an approximation of surprise. “I thought she was from Los Angeles.”

“Her family moved to Sunnydale while she was in the psychiatric hospital.” Artie explained.

“Well now.” Mrs Frederic said, to herself more than Artie. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“It is?” asked a thoroughly confused Artie."

Mrs Frederic just gave him her trademark mysterious smile.

“She wants to re-join the Warehouse, you know. Dawn, I mean.”

“Did she now? How did you respond to that?”

“I told her I would have to talk to you.”

“Now you have. What do you want to do?”

Artie thought about that for a bit. While Dawn had been schizophrenic, she had helped on several cases. On top of that, she was probably the only person in the world that could make sense of the equations she had used to make her teleporter. He had no doubt that something like that could come in very handy. Now that she wasn’t schizophrenic anymore, she could still do all of those things and she wouldn’t be as much of a liability. And, of course, Claudia would probably like to have her around. Given the amount of problems the Warehouse computer system had at the moment, Artie didn’t want to work alongside a grumpy Claudia.

“I would like to have her back.” Artie said eventually.

Mrs Frederic nodded once. “When you do, inform me. I would like to have a discussion with her an Ms Donovan.”

~*~

It was late when Dawn got back into her house. Buffy had begun to wonder whether she had decided to stay over at Claudia’s. She came and stood at the top of the stairs as Dawn headed to her room. “How’re you doing?”

Dawn jumped. “God, Buff, you can't do that!”

“What? I didn’t sneak up on you or anything. I just stood here. You were the one who didn’t see me.” Buffy said reasonably. This effect was somewhat spoiled by her smirk.

“Yeah, well, I don’t have perfect night vision, like a certain Slayer I could name.” Dawn grumbled. 

“You should’ve turned a light on, then.”

“Didn’t want to disturb anyone. Speaking of we should go up before we wake up Mom.”

Buffy sobered. “Good point.”

Dawn headed past Buffy towards her own room. Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her into her room. “Okay.” Dawn mumbled. “I guess I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. What do you want, Buff?”

“The Master’s dead.” Buffy announced without preamble.

Dawn quickly schooled her face into an expression of shock. This wasn’t too hard, given that she was pretty surprised, even though she had expected something like that after she had temporarily killed her sister. “Really? You killed him? Way to go!”

Buffy shook her head. “I didn’t even meet him. Giles says he died in the earthquake. He’s really confused. Apparently the Pegasus Code is never wrong.”

“Pergamum Codex.” Dawn corrected automatically. “Does it really matter that this is the first time it was wrong? I mean, you’re still alive, the world’s still here… what's the problem?”

Buffy shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. It’s just not the way these things normally go.”

“So you’ve dealt with prophecies before?” Dawn asked, surprised. She was sure that that was the kind of thing Buffy would’ve told her about. She’d told her about basically everything else she had done.

“No.” Buffy admitted.

“Then you don’t know how these things go. Maybe they’re wrong all the time.”

Buffy laughed. “I bow to your relentless logic.”

Dawn smiled back. “All part of being a scientist.” Then her smile faded. She wasn’t much of scientist anymore. She couldn’t even do basic maths in her head.

“So how’s your friend?” Buffy asked.

Dawn blinked. She had completely forgotten that she had told Buffy that she was helping out a friend. She supposed that she should’ve taken the time to figure out what she wanted to say before coming back. “Umm… she’s okay, now.” Dawn said, hoping that Buffy would leave it at that. At least until she had time to come up with a plausible lie. She could hardly say that she had helped Claudia deal with an infestation of smoking mice, after all.

“It was Claudia, wasn’t it? What’s wrong with her, anyway?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her.” Dawn snapped instantly, without thinking.

Buffy blushed and looked away. She hadn’t talked about Dawn’s schizophrenia with her. It freaked her out, way more than demons or even the prophecy had. She should’ve known that it was a sensitive subject, and then Buffy came out and said something like that… no wonder Dawn was annoyed. “I didn’t mean it like that. Is she… like you were?”

Dawn wondered how to respond to that. Sure, while they had been in the psych ward, Claudia had thought she was schizophrenic. On the other hand, the things that she had been seeing had actually been there. So, Dawn lied. She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t really have any other options. “No. She was… she had PTSD. Her parents died when she was young, and then her brother died right in front of her when she was seven. Going through foster care didn’t really help much.” Dawn said, hoping that Dawn wouldn’t press her for details. She knew basically nothing about PTSD.

“Oh my God.” Buffy breathed, wishing she hadn’t asked. It was one thing to fight vampires on a nightly basis, but it was quite another to hear about the kind of thing that happened to normal people on a daily basis. She really wished that she hadn’t asked.

“Precisely.” Dawn said. “She left the ward a while back, but she had a rough night, so I - wait, how did you know I was talking about Claudia, anyway?”

“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but it was kind of the only time I’ve ever seen you be friendly with someone who wasn’t me.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, do you mind if I go to sleep? I can't run on about five minutes of sleep like you can, and I’ve had quite a tiring night.” Dawn said, fully aware that that was perhaps the understatement of the year.

“Oh, right, yeah.” Buffy said hurriedly. Sometimes she forgot that people needed more sleep than she did. “Good night.”

“Night, Buff.”

Dawn walked back to her room, and pulled out Poe’s pen from the place she had secreted it. She instantly felt better. She knew that it was purely a psychological response and the pen hadn’t actually done anything to her, but she felt better now that it was near anyway.

On top of that, she felt happy that Claudia had given her her Farnsworth just before she had teleported home. Now, once Artie made a decision, he would call her. He hoped he made the decision she wanted, and made it soon. She wondered what lie he would tell Buffy and Joyce to explain why she was relocating to South Dakota.

Still, that was a little previous. She wouldn’t be surprised if Artie didn’t let her back in, anyway.


	8. Chapter Eight

It was fairly early the following day when Dawn was woken by the buzzing of the Farnsworth. This awakening wasn’t as undesirable as one might expect. Dawn hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d been plagued by bad dreams. Seeing someone die right in front of you, even if he wasn’t a good guy and seemed to be welcoming death for some inexplicable reason, wasn’t exactly conducive to a good night’s sleep. 

Dawn rolled over and picked up the Farnsworth. “Hey, Claud. What's going on?”

“Did I wake you up?” Claudia said, seeing Dawn’s tousled hair. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Its fine, Claud. I'm a big girl now. I can deal with a lack of sleep. Especially given that I was an insomniac for the last year.” Dawn replied. “What’s the news?”

“Do you want to join the NSA?” Claudia asked excitedly.

“I don’t know.” Dawn said. While she was perfectly happy being woken by Claudia, she wasn’t really in the mood to be answering questions. Especially questions that didn’t seem to make much sense. “What does the NSA do?”

“Oh, spying. Code breaking. Stuff like that.”

“Uh, Claud? I know you hold me in suspiciously high regard, but I was stark raving mad for the last year. I'm really not the sort of person that would be much good at… well, anything, really.” Dawn said tiredly.

“I mean as a cover. Your cover would be working for the NSA.” Claudia explained.

“I’m starting to wish that I had stayed asleep.” Dawn sighed. “Cover for what, Claud? Use simple sentences, I don’t think my brain has quite woken up yet.”

“For working at the Warehouse. Duh.”

Dawn blinked. Suddenly she was wide awake. “Wait. I can come back? Artie said I can come back?”

“Yes!” Claudia exclaimed, practically bouncing in her seat.

“So, what, he's going to tell Mom and Buffy that I’ve been recruited by the NSA? How does that work?”

“Pete and Myka are going to come by later. They’ll offer you a job, you’ll take it and voila, you’ll be a Warehouse Agent!”

“No no no.” Dawn exclaimed. “Bad idea.”

“Why?” Claudia asked, frowning. “It seemed like a good idea to me.”

“Have you met Pete? I so do not want him trying to convince my mom that he’s actually an Agent. I just know that he’d end up making some kind of stupid crack. Anyway, he hasn’t sleep for the last couple of days. Send Myka. Artie too, if you need two people. Pete won’t mind if means he can sleep for longer.”

“Good point. I’ll tell Artie. Any particular time you want them to come by?”

Dawn smiled slightly. “I have absolutely nothing to do all day.”

“Yeah, but if you want your mom and Buffy to be there-“

“I’m technically an adult, you know. I can accept a job in South Dakota if I want to. But you’re right. Come by after school hours. Buffy’ll probably be there by then, and Mom certainly will.”

“You should start packing.”

“Wouldn’t that look suspicious? I’m assuming the meeting later is the first I’ll be hearing about this. I should probably practice my shocked face.” Dawn put her palms on her cheeks, opened her mouth wide as though she was going to scream, and stared wide-eyed at Claudia.

Claudia burst out laughing. “That’s a bit over the top, Dawnie.”

Dawn smiled. “Just a little.”

Claudia held up two fingers with about half an inch between them. “Just a little. You looked like that painting of the guy screaming on the bridge.”

“Right. I’ll try and tone it down a bit. I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, see you soon.”

~*~

Artie sat in the Bronze Sector, staring at Radburn. The man had thought that he would be returned to maximum security prison. He hadn’t been entirely wrong.

MacPherson should be there, though. It didn’t sit well with him that Wells had killed him. It shouldn’t have happened like that. They didn’t just kill people. Not in cold blood, like HG had. That was murder, pure and simple.

James had been a good man, before he had gone to the bad. He’d been a better Warehouse Agent than Artie had been himself. Artie had always thought that, maybe, he could’ve gotten through to James, make him see that releasing the artefacts to the world wasn’t a good idea.

Although, Artie had to admit, James had never actually done so. Sure, he had sold artefacts to certain wealthy people, but nearly as many as he could have. Artie knew that he had had plenty of others. Dawn finding them in his hotel room safe when she had been looking for Poe’s pen and notebook had proved that.

He supposed that Radburn’s finances had only gone so far. Which meant that, had Radburn hadn’t had all but his most secret accounts seized after his arrest, James would never have had to sell anything at all. Whether he would have done so anyway was a moot point, but Artie didn’t think so. What James had said didn’t match up with what he had actually done.

James could have taken plenty of artefacts when he had broken out HG Wells. In fact, he could have quite easily used Leena to Tesla everyone, Bronze them, and then make off with everything. But MacPherson hadn’t done that.

MacPherson had told Leena that he had lied to Radburn about what his plans were. Wasn’t it possible that James had been lying to Artie as well?

If that were true, he had been doing it for years. He’d been talking about making artefacts available to the world long before he’d rushed into the burning building with the Phoenix and killed five firemen. If MacPherson had been misdirecting Artie’s attention for that long…

What had his actual plan been?

Artie’s thoughts on this matter were interrupted when Claudia walked into the room. “Uh, Artie? This isn’t exactly the healthiest room to brood in. Shouldn’t you go back to the B&B? Then you can brood in bed while you have breakfast, so it’ll be the B&B&B.”

“I’m not brooding.” Artie snapped. “What do you want, Claudia?”

“Dawn says it’s probably not the best of ideas to send Pete to her house later. On account of the fact that he's a giant man-child. She thinks it would be better if it was you and Myka.”

Artie sighed heavily. “She’s probably right.” He looked up to see Claudia looking at him oddly. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” Claudia looked away.

“Out with it, girl.”

“Seriously? Who says that? I know you’re, like, a million years old, but seriously.”

“Spill.” Artie said implacably.

Claudia pushed her thumb against each of her fingers in turn. “Um, I was wondering if you were okay.”

“Me?” Artie snorted. “I'm always okay. You don’t even need to ask.”

“Only, I'm guessing that you and MacPherson were kind of close, back in the days when you were agents at Warehouse 1. And now’s he’s… well, anyway, I was wondering how you were doing.” Claudia continued.

“I’m fine.”

“Because, um, I know that people who work together like that get close, um, just look at Pete and Myka. And, uh, I thought my brother was dead for years, so I kind of get what it’s like losing someone, so… if you ever wanted a monumentally uncomfortable and awkward talk I’ll… well, probably run away and regret ever saying this, to be honest.” Claudia finished, flushing.

“Oh.” Artie said, surprised. “No, seriously, I'm fine. Anyway, I’ve got a standing offer from Myka to talk about this kind of thing. If I weren’t fine, I'd take her up on it. I certainly wouldn’t touch your offer with a ten foot pole.”

“I don’t know whether I should feel offended or relieved by that.” Claudia muttered.

“Go with relieved. It’s a fuzzier sensation.”

“In that case – oh, thank God! I was just offering because I thought it was the thing to do, you know, but-“

“Yes, yes.” Artie interrupted, waving a hand at her. “I get the picture. Now get back to work.”

Claudia pouted. “That’s slave labour, that is.”

“You enjoy the work, don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

“Then it’s not work. Now get back to it.”

~*~

That afternoon was an ordinary afternoon in the Summers household. Or, at least, as ordinary an afternoon as it is possible to have when one person knows that they have to go patrolling later to hunt vampires and see if she can figure out why the Master died, and another person is waiting for two government agents to show up and recruit her to work in quite possibly the most secret organization in the world.

They played Scrabble. None of them were particularly good at it.

There was a knock at the door. Dawn immediately tensed in a way that she hadn’t since she had stopped seeing the Abomination. Joyce didn’t notice, because she went to open the door, but Buffy definitely did, and she wondered what the cause was.

Dawn couldn’t hear what was being said at the door, she was too far away, so she looked at Buffy meaningfully. Being a Slayer, her hearing was in the upper ranges of what a human’s senses could be. “There’s some people – government people. They want to see you.” Buffy said surprised. “What did you do, Dawnie? Raid Fort Knox?”

Dawn looked as innocent as she could. She wasn’t sure how convincing she was. Such a degree of expression hadn’t really been possible when she had been schizophrenic. She thought it might be a little over the top, but Buffy didn’t say anything.

Joyce came in, Artie and Myka following behind. Myka was wearing her standard business-like pantsuit, but Artie was, for the first time Dawn had ever seen him, wearing a suit. He had really taken this Agent thing seriously.

“Um, Dawn?” Joyce said. She seemed somewhat confused. “There’s some people from – where did you say you were from, again?”

“The NSA.” Myka supplied. “I’m Agent Bering, this is Agent Nielsen.”

Dawn schooled her expression to be shocked with just a dash of fear. She hadn’t the faintest of ideas as to what she actually looked like, but no one commented on her looking constipated, so it seemed to pass muster. “Uh, why? I haven’t done anything terrorist-y.”

“We know.” Myka said.

“We’re here to offer you a job.” Artie added

“Wait, what?” Joyce said, before Dawn could. “A job? Do you know about…?”

“Her medical history?” Artie suggested. “Of course we do. But we’ve spoken to Dr Greene, her psychiatrist, and he assures us that she’s fine. He says that she’s perfectly capable of working for us.”

Dawn almost smiled at that. She had worked for them even when she hadn’t, technically, been capable of doing so.

“You spoke to her psychiatrist?” Buffy said. “That was fast. Dawn’s only been back a few days.”

Myka shrugged. “We move fast when we have to.”

“I haven’t even finished college, yet.” Dawn pointed out, in a spirit of not looking too willing. “What work do you expect me to do?”

“Code breaking.”

“What makes you think I can do that?”

“Because you are a mathematical genius, and we can always use someone like you.”

“My daughter’s a Physics major.” Joyce said. She felt a little lost, and she wanted to contribute something.

“We know.” Myka replied. “She’s flown through all her classes with almost no effort. Her teachers expected her to go on and get a doctorate. One tutor said that it was probably only a matter of time before she solved the Riemann hypothesis.”

Dawn really did smile at that, even though she very much doubted that they had actually spoken to her tutors. The Riemann hypothesis had remained unsolved for about a 150 years. It was probably the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics. She wondered if she could have solved it.

“You can see why we would want someone with a brain like that working for us.” Artie supplied.

“I-I need to time think about this.” Dawn said, hoping that one of them would say that time was of the essence or something suitably melodramatic like that. If they didn’t, she feared that Joyce would guilt her out of working for them and she’d end up going back to UCLA and flunking everything.

Artie opened his mouth to say ”Of course, take all the time you need,” when Myka said “I’m afraid that you only have until tomorrow to accept. Our superiors aren’t willing to give you more time than that.”

“What?” Joyce exclaimed. “No! I'm not… I only just got her back!”

“Mom.” Dawn said gently, getting up to stand next to her. “I’m over twenty-one, you know. I can make the decision myself.”

“But-“ Joyce said, then turned back to the agents. Straightening, she said “We’ll need to talk about where she’ll be, and salary, and safeguards in case she… in case she relapses, and-“

“Mom, I haven’t actually taken the job yet.” Dawn said.

Joyce looked at her. “I know. But you’re going to. I can see it in your face. And why wouldn’t you? They’re right, you’d be amazing at it. And I know you don’t want to stay at home until the next semester starts.”

Dawn hugged her. “Thank you. I’ll be back as often as I can. Thank you.”

Artie coughed delicately, and mother and daughter disentangles themselves from each other. ”I’m afraid I can't give you any details of what your daughter will be doing. But, rest assured, Ms Summers will be in good hands.”

“She’d better be.” Buffy said.

“Buffy!” Joyce admonished. “Try not to threaten the government, will you?”


	9. Chapter Nine

Dawn remembered when she had gone off to UCLA. Joyce had been tearful about it, and Buffy had also been fairly emotional. Hank, of course, hadn’t even been there. However, Dawn hadn’t been nervous or homesick or anything like that. She knew that, despite the fact that she had her own apartment, she would still be spending a good amount of time at home. It wasn’t as though Joyce and Buffy were far away. Besides, she doubted that college would be that much different from high school. There simply hadn’t been any need for her to be emotional, at least in her opinion.

Of course, that was probably because she had been an introverted, cerebral sort of person even before her schizophrenia had manifested itself. She had never been a particularly emotional person.

Now, though, as Dawn packed all the stuff she would need at the Warehouse, she almost felt as though she was tearing herself in two. She had spent time with Buffy doing the girly things that she had never really wanted to do back in LA, and she was closer to Joyce now than she had ever been before.

Dawn knew that, thanks to the teleporter that she had made, she could be back in Sunnydale in a few seconds if she should ever get homesick, or even if Buffy needed some kind of help with her Slaying. The situation wasn’t all that different from what it had been when she had gone to college, but it felt different.

The difference was that, instead of being so attached to her sister, Dawn now had Claudia too. If she stayed in Sunnydale, she wouldn’t be able to see Claudia, or even Myka, Pete and Artie. For the first time, Dawn had actual friends, friends who wanted her around. It wasn’t just her and Buffy any more.

She couldn’t turn her back on that, but it didn’t stop her from crying a little when Artie and Myka came by a day later to pick her up and drive her to the teleporter at Caltech.

~*~

When Dawn stepped into the Warehouse, it felt like she was doing so for the first time. She wasn’t schizophrenic, tagging along behind Leena because she didn’t want to be left alone. She wasn’t waiting for some evil 19th century writer to break in. She was here because she was going to work here.

Pete looked up and frowned. “Hey, Dawn. What are you doing here?”

Dawn frowned in return and turned to Artie. “Actually, what am I doing here? Cataloguing?”

“Wait, what? You’re working here now?” Pete exclaimed in surprise. “Mykes, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, you were there when we decided it, Pete.”

“I was?”

“Yep.” Dawn said.

“Cool. Welcome back, Dawnie.”

“That’s what you said last time.” Myka said, smiling. “You were basically asleep at the time, though.”

Pete smiled proudly. “Well, would you look at that? I can make decisions asleep just as well as I can when I'm awake.”

“Uh, Pete? I don’t think that’s something to be all that proud of.”

“Anyway.” Artie said, before the pair could descend any further into bickering. “In answer to your question, Dawn, before you do anything here Mrs Frederic wants a word with you and Claudia.”

“Okay.” Dawn said, suddenly anxious. Mrs Frederic was kind of scary. “Where is she?”

“Right here.” Dawn jumped and span around to see Mrs Frederic standing in the doorway, with Claudia at her elbow. The redhead looked like she would rather be just about anywhere else. “If you would follow me.”

Mrs Frederic left without waiting for Dawn to reply, so she had to hurry to catch up. She lead the pair to a room which Dawn had never seen before (which wasn’t surprising, given that of the three times she had been in the Warehouse proper, one had been after days spent in a mirror with a psychopath, the second she had been dying of a drug overdose, and during the last she has seen someone killed right in front of her. She hadn’t really been in a state to notice things). It bore remarkable resemblance to an interrogation room. There was nothing in it but a table and three chairs.

Mrs Frederic sat on one, and Claudia and Dawn took the others. Mrs Frederic steepled her fingers. “Claudia has already told me about the events involving Carroll’s mirror. I would, however, be interested in hearing your side of the story.”

“Um, well…” Dawn said, stalling. She didn’t like thinking about that time. Including the times when she had cut herself and overdosed on antipsychotics, that had been the lowest point of her schizophrenia. It had been the only time that she had actively spoken to the Abomination. She had begged for it to kill her. “I was having a bad day, and when Artie called in Leena for her opinion on why it looked like Myka was stuck in the mirror, and I came because I didn’t want to be alone. I, uh, I guess my aura reacted to the mirror, and I got stuck in it with Alice while the mirror took over my body. Claud figured out what had happened and got me out, and in a fit of gratitude I yelled at her and threw all my clothes out of the window.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Dawn.” Claudia said hurriedly. “It-“

“Enough.” Mrs Frederic said. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?”

“Well, I wasn’t really in my right mind at the time.” Dawn said with a wry smile.

“I wish you wouldn’t make jokes about that.” Claudia muttered.

“I’m allowed to joke about it. It’s my mind. No one else can.” Dawn replied.

“Dawn, you said that the mirror left you with… impressions of things. It showed you that Claudia didn’t remove artefacts from the Warehouse and give them to MacPherson.” Mrs Frederic interjected.

Oh. Dawn had forgotten she had said that. She couldn’t remember anything from when she mirror had possessed her. She had been lying to protect Claudia.

Still, she wasn’t going to let Claudia get in trouble for something that she hadn’t done. “Yes. I don’t remember much, but I remember that.”

“You should know that Leena removed the artefacts while under MacPherson’s influence. She used the thimble of Harriet Tubman, which lets whoever wears it to look like someone else.” Mrs Frederic said, looking at Dawn intently.

“She did? So- um, yeah.” Dawn’s tongue tripping over itself to avoid revealing the lie. 

“Alright. Claudia, you can go. I wish to talk to Dawn alone.” Mrs Frederic said, after a few moments.

“Wait, aren’t you going to ask Claud why she didn’t tell anyone?” Dawn protested. She didn’t particularly want to be left alone in an interrogation room with Mrs Frederic. Not when she suspected she was about to get in trouble for lying.

“She has already told me.” Mrs Frederic replied. Dawn looked at Claudia, who managed to tell Dawn through her expression that she would talk about it later.

Claudia left.

“I understand that your family lives in Sunnydale.”

Dawn blinked. That hadn’t been at all what she had expected. “Um, yeah. Well, my mom and my sister do, at least. I think Dad’s still in LA.”

“And your sister is fifteen.”

“Almost sixteen, now. Why?”

Mrs Frederic didn’t answer. Although she still looked as impassive as she ever did, Dawn got the impression that Mrs Frederic was trying to decide whether or not she should tell Dawn something.

Eventually, she said “You must not tell your sister about the work that you do here.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“No matter how much danger she is in. it is vital that she not find out about this place.”

Dawn tilted her head to one side. “You know, don’t you? About Buffy.” She didn’t explain what she meant. If she was right, then Mrs Frederic would understand.

Mrs Frederic nodded. “I know all about your sister and her… nocturnal activities. But I must insist that you don’t tell her about the Warehouse. It is important.”

“I’m guessing you can't explain why.” Dawn said drily. “Anyway, I wasn’t going to tell her. She has enough to deal with without knowing about all about this.”

“Good.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Mrs Frederic didn’t reply, which Dawn decided to take as permission. “What are the Regents waiting for? I mean, regents are supposed to rule when a king or queen can't. So, are they waiting for someone to, um, rule the Warehouse?”

Mrs Frederic smiled enigmatically. “That is a very good question.” She stood up and walked towards the door.

“So, of course, you’re not going to answer it.” Dawn muttered, standing to follow. However, by the time she got to the door, Mrs Frederic had vanished. Dawn sighed. “I really hate the way she does that.”

~*~

When Dawn returned to Artie’s office, he immediately handed her a pencil. “Um, thanks, Artie. I’ve always a pencil of my own.” Dawn said sarcastically. “It’s really thoughtful of you.”

“You can't keep it. It’s so that you can draw Wells. We need to know what she looks like, because I doubt that we’ve seen the last of her.” Artie explained.

“Um, Artie? Sorry to break it to you, but I can't draw. Unless you want a picture of a stickwoman?”

Artie sighed. “It’s an artefact, Dawn. It belonged to-“

“It’s an artefact?” Dawn said, examining it closely. “Cool! How does it work?”

“Just think about what Wells looked like and start drawing. The pencil will deal with the rest.”

“Okay.” Dawn hunted for some paper.

“Speaking of writing implements.” Artie began. “I think you should bring in Poe’s pen and his notebook.”

“Why?” Dawn said absently. She had found some paper, and was watching with interest as her hand rapidly sketched Wells all by itself.

“Because it’s a dangerous artefact, and this is where we keep those kinds of things.”

“Whoa, wait a second!” Dawn looked up. “Bad idea. Bad idea. I don’t want them put on some shelf where they can get covered in goo. My sanity relies on them not being neutralised. I’ll keep them at Leena’s, thank you very much.”

“Dawn, with Wells out there, the B&B isn’t exactly safe. They could be stolen, or worse, used. They would be safe here. You could keep them on my desk and see them every day, if you like, but they should be in the Warehouse.”

“Well, the Warehouse isn’t exactly safe, either.” Dawn pointed out. “Wells broke in here without any problems.”

“Yes, we’re trying to figure out how she did that.” Artie said. “We think it has to be something to do with what MacPherson was doing in Switzerland. Claudia’s talking to Josh about it. But we’re tightening up security here, and the Warehouse is still the safest place on the planet.”

Dawn didn’t want to let Poe’s artefacts out of reach. They were far and away the most important things she owned (even if they weren’t, strictly speaking, hers). That said, now that she was permanently living in Univille, she would be spending most of her time in the Warehouse. If they were on Artie’s desk, she would be able to see them whenever she wanted.

“Okay, I see your point. I’ll bring them by later.” Dawn looked down at her sketch and grimaced. “I think I might have messed up the sketch.”

She held it up, and Artie blanched. It had started out as a sketch of a woman with dark hair, but before Dawn had added any details to it had been overshadowed by a vaguely humanoid shadow.

“Try again, and try not to think about the Abom- about anything other than Wells.” Artie said.

Dawn nodded, crumpled the piece of paper and threw it into the bin. It wasn’t really surprising that talk of Poe’s pen had dredged up memories of the Abomination. Generally, Dawn had seen it as a shadow just out of the corner of her eye, but other times she had seen it as a looming nebulous monstrosity. The sketch really didn’t do it justice.

Still, she wasn’t the Key. She wouldn’t ever see the Abomination again.


	10. Chapter Ten

Dawn had only very occasionally thought about romance with respect to herself. She had often been swept up in Buffy’s crushes on whoever the popular people were crushing on at the time, but Dawn wasn’t popular. Moreover, she had no desire to start up a relationship. She preferred the company of her sister, and given that everyone else tended to tease her it was understandable that she never found anyone.

This hadn’t really changed when her schizophrenia had manifested. The only difference was that, before, she had never really thought about that type of thing whereas now romance was pretty much impossible for her. Except in her more self-pitying moods, she hadn’t really given it much thought. It’s difficult to focus on such things when you’re more preoccupied with your sanity.

She had flirted with Joshua, slightly, when she had teleported to Geneva to get the key to his lab in California. But that had just been because Dawn hadn’t really thought that she would have another chance.

She wasn’t schizophrenic any more, though. Nor did she spend almost all her time with her sister, avoiding other people.

~*~

While there were plenty of artefacts out there in the world, they were generally… well, out there. Univille was a normal sort of town – the sort of town that Sunnydale might be if it wasn’t on a Hellmouth. Having artefacts turning up there was unusual.

So when an artefact showed up that made what someone was watching on TV become real, it came as something of a surprise.

Up until then, Dawn had been cataloguing the artefacts in the Warehouse, doing the same sort of thing that Claudia had been doing when she first joined the Warehouse. Like Claudia, she quickly found that the novelty wore off. On the other hand, at least her aura didn’t react with them anymore, which was nice.

However, with an artefact about to lay waste to Univille, she was everyone was on duty trying to stop it. Even her.

Artie had actually given Dawn the opportunity to sit this one out at the B&B, on the grounds that she hadn’t ever actually been out in the field. Even if the field was the town she currently lived in.

Dawn had refused. Not because she wanted to prove to everyone (and herself) that she could actually be useful, although that certainly played a part of it. No, the main reason was because Mrs Frederic and some other person were trying to recover Leena’s memories from when MacPherson had put the Pearl in her brain.

Dawn couldn’t stand to be around that kind of thing. Anything that messed around with someone’s head, it was too much for her. It brought back too many unpleasant memories from the last year of her life.

Not that she told Artie that, of course. She brushed off his concern and did her best to help. Thankfully, thanks to their concerted efforts, they managed to make sure the town didn’t blow up and they safely retrieved the artefact and put it in the Warehouse.

However, in order for them to do that, Claudia had had to build a machine to help them track down where the artefact was. This sort of thing wasn’t unusual – she had made things before to help on cases.

In general, though, Claudia didn’t kiss the boy who’d sold her the hardware in front of everyone. Including Dawn.

~*~

Dawn would be the first to admit that her experience with boys was woefully small. It consisted almost entirely from titbits picked up from Buffy. As such, when Claudia fled the room blushing when Myka had bought up the kiss later, and didn’t mention Todd again, Dawn assumed that it had been a heat of the moment thing, a reaction to not suddenly dying in a massive explosion. Dawn understood that. Not dying was a perfectly valid reason to celebrate.

So Dawn didn’t think of it again. At least not consciously.

~*~

A week later, Myka and Pete were trying to find an artefact at a fashion show, which seemed to be rapidly aging models. They didn’t die, not straightaway, but it wasn’t long before old age caught up to them.

Sadly, the artefact was used on Myka. Given how long previous models had lasted, it was safe to suspect that she wouldn’t last more than a day. They had yet to find out what the artefact was, or who was using it.

As soon as Dawn heard about it, she went into the Warehouse and picked up Rheticus’ compass. There weren’t many artefacts in the Warehouse that Dawn trusted enough to use, but she knew exactly how the compass worked, what it did and how to reverse it. If someone was dying of old age, what else could be done than put them in a place where time didn’t work?

So she took the artefact, teleported to Myka’s bedside and used it on the pair of them.

Myka was somewhat surprised by this. She had just been telling Pete not to do anything too radical in his search for the artefact, and yet here she was in a pocket dimension. There weren’t many things more radical than that.

On the other hand, she couldn’t find it in herself to be too mad at Dawn. Being here did keep her alive.

Dawn smiled at her weakly, and wished that she’d thought to bring a chair. Myka was find in her hospital bed, but nothing else had been brought through. “You’ll be okay now, Myka. Don’t worry. Pete will find whoever did this to you.”

“How will he fix me, though?” Myka said, hating how weak and quavering her voice was. “He can’t get here.”

Dawn had thought about that. “I’ll wait a while, then pop out and see how he’s doing. When he has the artefact, I’ll pull you out of here.”

A thought occurred to Myka. She wished it hadn’t. “But what if he neutralizes it, but it doesn’t work because I'm here? What if he needs me to get it to me at a certain time, or-“

“Myka.” Dawn interrupted. “If you go out there, you’ll die. And I'm not going to let that happen, okay?”

“But-“

“Listen. You remember when you broke in through my window, back when I – do you remember?”

Myka did. Dawn had barricaded herself in her room, and wasn’t answering. Everyone had thought that she had tried to kill herself. Myka nodded.

“You probably stopped me from… doing something really, really stupid that day.” Dawn stopped and swallowed, trying to clear the sudden lump in her throat. “And you were the first normal person who, um, treated me like a person. Rather than, um, like a doll or-“ Dawn looked away and snorted bitterly. “God, I'm probably not making any kind of sense. The fact of the matter is, I'm not going to let you die, okay?”

Dawn was making sense. She remembered, in the early days, how she had been around Dawn. It had been awkward for both of them, and Dawn, already a somewhat reclusive person, had barely left her room. Myka certainly hadn’t treated her the same way she had with Claudia.

Myka also remembered how everyone had treated her after Sam had been killed. She’d hated it, hated the way they constantly reminded her of her failure. It wasn’t until she had broken into Dawn’s room that day that she had realised that Dawn probably felt exactly the same way. So, after that, she’d treated Dawn like a person, a proper person, rather than dancing around her on tiptoes and uncomfortable silences.

“Thank you.” Myka said softly.

Dawn couldn’t bring herself to look at Myka. She’d seen enough pity directed at her to last a life time. She didn’t need to see more. “It’s okay. I just don’t like people dying, okay? It’ll be alright.”

~*~

And it was alright. Pete fixed it, and it turned out that using the compass hadn’t been necessary after all. Myka was back to her old young self.

The following day, once everyone had returned to the B&B and things had calmed down after the impromptu party that was usually held when one of them cheated death, Myka was staring at the phone, thinking about something Pete had said.

Myka had never been the popular, pretty girl. That had always been her sister. She’d been the sister who learned languages in her spare time and tutored the football captain, while her sister was the sort to actually date one. She had been fairly jealous of her sister, actually. They'd never gotten along.

It had come as something of a surprise to her, therefore, when she and Sam had started dating. She hadn’t really ever done anything like that, before. Myka would be amongst the first to admit that she was married to her job, and she had never expected any other kind of relationship.

Then Sam had died, and Myka had become even more focused on her job, on not making any mistakes of any sort, ever. She’d shut out everything that Sam had told her, everything that he had said, because it hurt to remember. It had been easy to slip back into being the same type of person that she’d been since high school.

Which was why she had thought that she could never in a million years go out on that catwalk like she had today. Shy, geeky, bookish Myka Bering just didn’t do that kind of thing. Her sister Tracy wouldn’t have even blinked if she had been in the same situation, she knew, but Myka just couldn’t do it.

Then Pete had told her that she was pretty. She knew that, most of the time, Pete wasn’t serious, but he hadn’t been joking about that. No one had called her pretty since Sam. Tracy was pretty. She wasn’t.

Then she’d gone out on the catwalk, and there hadn’t been the boos and jeers that she hadn’t really expected but had secretly feared would erupt, and then someone had taken a picture of her because she had ‘star quality’. Admittedly, that had led to someone rapidly aging her, but she had realised that, no, prettiness wasn’t solely her sister’s domain.

Which was why she was currently staring at the phone, wondering if she should pick it up and call her sister. She could tell her about the day’s events, of course, but she thought that maybe, just this once, there was something that they might actually be able to talk about.

Myka was disturbed from her reverie when someone said “Hey, Myka? I know I’ve stared at a lot of things in my life, but you’re not actually crazy, so unless you have a good reason to be having a staring contest with that phone, I suggest you either pick it up or leave it alone.”

Myka whirled around to see Dawn sitting on the sofa with a book on her lap. “How long have you been there?”

Dawn shrugged. “Twenty minutes? Long enough to see that you're giving that phone some serious thought. What’s up?”

Myka thought about denying everything, but having been caught staring at the phone for ages she didn’t think that she could pull it off. “I was wondering whether I should call my sister.”

“Ah. Not close then?”

Myka smiled wryly. “You could say that.”

“What I’d actually say is that calling your sister is usually a good thing.” Dawn replied.

“Yeah, but you actually get along with yours.” Myka pointed out. “You’re biased. Besides, you’ve got that whole inter-dependant thing with Claudia going on, so I'd say that you're pretty much covered on the sister front.”

“You think we’re inter-dependant?” Dawn said, somewhat surprised.

Myka refrained from mentioning the fact that they'd left their psychiatric ward together, broken into the Warehouse together, and that it wasn’t unknown for Dawn to sleep in a chair in outside Claudia’s door. She remembered the way that Claudia had gone all to pieces whenever Dawn was having a bad day, and how Dawn had tried to help Claudia get over the fact that her brother had moved to Geneva and was getting on with his life. She didn’t mention any of this. She didn’t even mention that Dawn had just said ‘we’.

However, something must’ve shown on her face, because Dawn said “Oh God, you think we’re inter-dependant.”

“Well, yeah.” Myka admitted. “You should’ve seen your face when Claud kissed Todd.”

Dawn frowned and absently rubbed her face. “My face? What face? I didn’t have a face. What face did I have?”

Myka was beginning to strongly wish that she hadn’t got into this conversation. She knew that neither Claudia nor Dawn had had normal lives, and given the circumstances they had met and the life they were living now and everything they’d been through between those points, it was hardly surprising that they were close. She’d meant it just as a throwaway comment.

But with Dawn looking at her, Myka could hardly drop the subject now. No matter how much she might want to. “You, um, kind of looked… jealous.”

Dawn snorted. “You’re kidding. I don’t even know Todd. I haven’t the slightest desire to kiss him.”

Myka decided not to say that that wasn’t what she meant, but Dawn then said “That wasn’t what you meant though, was it? I can tell. What did you mean?”

Myka reluctantly said “You weren’t jealous of Claudia. You were jealous of Todd. Because, um… I'm really not the sort of person you should be talking to about this…”

“No, I know exactly the sort of person I should be talking to about this, and I’ve spoken to that sort of person enough to last me a life time.” Dawn snapped. “So, please, tell me what you meant.”

Myka wasn’t a psychotherapist. She could only tell Dawn what she thought, which admittedly was mostly based off of various TV shows. So she did. “Claudia is, um, yours. In a platonic way. Other than, you know, Joshua, her relationship with you is the strongest one she has. And then there’s Todd, who offers a different kind of relationship and… ah, this is so awkward… you feel threatened, and kind of jealous because he’s stealing your Claudia.” Myka said slowly. “Jeez, I really wish I hadn’t spoken now.”

Dawn was trying to digest what Myka had said. Her instant reaction was that this couldn’t possibly be true, because that kind of thing didn’t happen except in cheesy movies. Then she thought about it some more, and realised that it still wasn’t true. Dawn thought of Claudia like a sister, yes, but her actual sister, one who she had been extremely attached to for years, was dating someone and she didn’t feel that her relationship with Buffy was threatened in the slightest.

She knew that her relationship was Claudia was unusually close, and that a large part of why she was at the Warehouse now was because Claudia had asked her to come. But she wasn’t jealous of Todd. She was sure of that.

“I’m… going to bed now.” Dawn said slowly.

Myka’s relief was palpable. “Right. Okay. Goodnight, then.”

“’night.”

When Dawn went into her room, though, she rummaged around for her mobile and called Joshua. It was early evening in Geneva, so he should be awake.

“Hi, Dawn.” Joshua said, picking up after a couple of two rings. “How are things going up there?”

“Things are good.” Dawn said. “Have you managed to sort out the mess MacPherson made over there?”

Joshua chuckled. “We’re working on it night and day. Thankfully, the Regents did something so that the initial scare about the missing antimatter has gone away. Apparently it’s supposed to have been a failed terrorist attack.”

“So, hypothetically speaking, if someone was to come to Geneva, you’d be too busy to see them?” Dawn asked.

“Well, hypothetically, yes. But realistically, if someone hypothetically called Dawn flew all the way out here, I think I’d make the time to see her.”

“What if that person didn’t have to fly?” Dawn asked.

It took Joshua a couple of seconds to realise what Dawn was talking about. “Dawn, no! I told you that teleportation is dangerous, you-“

“Claudia didn’t tell you?” Dawn interrupted. “I cracked it. No side effects. It works just fine. Admittedly, only for one way trips, but I'm sure I can get a flight back.”

“She must’ve forgotten to mention it.” Joshua muttered. “Well, congratulations, anyway. You’ve got to show me the formula. You going public with it?”

“You know, I hadn’t even thought about that?” Dawn said. Then, after a pause, she said “Did Claudia tell about… the other news about me?”

“You mean your… yeah, she told me. At great length, actually.”

“That’s good. So, when do you want me to come over?”

Joshua paused. “Um, tomorrow? Say, fourish? I’m sure I can arrange some free time around then.”

“Sure. Same place as last time?”

“It’s a date.” Dawn said, then frowned. "Actually, hold on a second. That would mean I'd have to wake up gruesomely early because of the time difference. Can we change it to dinner?"

Joshua laughed. "Sure. Dinner's good."


	11. Chapter Eleven

The following day, Dawn wasn’t unduly surprised to find that Claudia had woken before her. For a long time, Dawn had barely slept at all. Now that she wasn’t kept awake by… various things, Dawn found that she tended to sleep as much as your average teenager did. Which, oddly, was more than Claudia, who actually was a teenager.

“Morning, Claud.” Dawn said pleasantly as she headed for the fridge in the vain hope that Pete wouldn’t have already eaten everything worth eating. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m good.” Claudia said in an odd voice.

Dawn turned around, suddenly tense. Dawn recognised that voice. Bad news generally came with it. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Did you call Josh yesterday?”

Dawn nodded warily, not sure what Claudia was getting at. “Yeah, I did. Why? Has something happened to him?”

“Not… exactly.” Claudia said slowly. “Listen, Dawn… did you ask him out?”

Dawn scratched her head. “I asked him to dinner. I wanted to show him my teleportation equation.”

“Uh, he said you already did. The last time you saw him.” Claudia said tiredly.

Dawn nodded again. “Yeah, but that wasn’t the whole formula. I took bits out. And before you ask why, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind at the time.”

“Actually, Dawn, I don’t really care if you showed him your shopping list and passed it off as your equation. I care that you're going to teleport half way across the world in order to have dinner with my brother.”

Dawn frowned, confused by Claudia’s tone. She turned over her friend’s statement mentally, trying to figure out what she’d done now. Eventually she gave up and asked “Why?”

Claudia gave an exasperated sigh. “Because he’s my brother, Dawnie!”

“Um, yes. I know. I have met him before, you know.” Dawn replied mildly, now thoroughly confused.

Claudia stared at Dawn, her mouth working silently as she tried to figure out exactly what it was that she wanted to say. Eventually, she said “Look, Dawn, you can’t just ask my brother out on a date. You’re supposed to ask me first. He’s my brother, you… you can't – look, that’s just not how it’s done!”

Dawn was beginning to get somewhat irritated now. She still didn’t really understand what Claudia’s problem was, but she still felt annoyed. It probably had something to do with this entire situation being sprung on her the moment she woke up. “What? I'm meant to make appointments with you now? Are you his secretary or something? Do I have to go through you to speak to him now?”

“You do if you want to date him!” Claudia answered. She didn’t shout. She definitely didn’t shout. Sure, her voice might be raised, but there was absolutely no shouting going on here.

Dawn recoiled. Whether it was from the accusation or from Claudia’s tone of voice, she didn’t know. “Date him? Who said anything about dating? I asked him to dinner! Since when is dinner a date?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Claudia said, spreading her hands. “Since about the dawn of time!”

Dawn made an effort not to lose her temper. She hadn’t since she’d used the pen, and she didn’t want to start now. “I thought it was just a social thing.”

“You cannot possibly be that out of touch.” Claudia said incredulously.

“Claudia.” Dawn said in a carefully calm voice. “For the past year and a half, I’ve been steadily getting more and more insane. Before that, the only friend I had was my sister, and you can be certain that we never talked about social things. I didn’t like people, Claud, and they didn’t like me. You should remember that, I’ve locked myself from everyone often enough. So, forgive me if I’m not up to speed on social niceties. I’ve never really used them before.”

Claudia instantly felt horrible. This wasn’t a new feeling – she’d had to stand by and watch Dawn slowly implode while Artie decided whether or not she could stay at the Warehouse, and she’d felt much the same way. The difference was that, now, she wasn’t just standing by, wanting to help her friend. She had actively hurt her. “Ah, hell. I don’t know what to say.”

Dawn sat down opposite Claudia. “Claud, the people who are close to me, really close to me, I can count on one hand. You’re one of them. I know that I’m not exactly the most… normal person…” her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “… and I'm fairly certain that I'm going to do some outrageous stuff. I'm still getting used to being normal, but don’t dance around me like I'm made of glass. After all the stuff I’ve been through, there’s nothing you can possibly say that’s worse than that.”

Claudia still didn’t know what to say. Eventually, she said “So… you don’t have a crush on Josh then?”

Dawn laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Nah. Being asexual has been good enough for me so far, I think I’ll stick with it.” Then she grinned wickedly at Claudia. “But what about you and Todd?”

Claudia looked away and blushed. “So, anyway…” Claudia said, transparently changing the subject. “There’s some tech guy coming in today to overhaul our computer system so that guys like MacPherson can't show up and make such a massive mess of things. Apparently he comes from Eureka, which Artie said like I it was some sort of cursed town, so I figured that I should probably work some internet magic and see what I can find.”

~*~

As it turned out, Claudia didn’t have enough time to look into Eureka. If she had, then it would’ve come as no surprise that Douglas Fargo (the name of the tech guy) would cause a lot of problems while installing the new system.

See, the thing about the status quo is that, in general, it works. That was why it had become the status quo in the first place. Admittedly, messing around with the status quo didn’t normally lead to an AI computer system in the Warehouse being activated, dozens of Orwellian cameras popping up out of the ground, and it promptly trying to freeze everyone to death due to the fact that they weren’t as efficient as the AI would like, but that was just life at the Warehouse.

~*~

Dawn rubbed her arms, fully aware that she was pitifully underdressed for the temperature in the Warehouse. To call it merely cold would be to pass up a chance to describe it as arctic. “S-say Artie, surely there’s some warming artefacts around here somewhere?” she said, teeth chattering.

“Oh, yes, of course, but they’re too far from here.” Artie said. “We’ve got to try and stop Hugo-1 from inside while Pete and Myka bring the real Hugo here to try and fix his creation.”

“Jeez, some crazy scientist modelling an AI on himself that then goes crazy itself.” Dawn mumbled through numb lips. “I knew the Warehouse was weird, but that’s just flat out science fiction.”

“You should try Eureka.” Fargo said with a rueful smile.

“If it’s like this, I’ll give it a pass, thanks.” Dawn replied. “Oh God it’s cold. Artie, I'm not cut out for this. I'm from California! The Sunshine State! This is just evil!”

“Isn’t Florida the Sunshine State?” Claudia said thoughtfully.

Dawn thought about giving her a withering stare, but decided that she should probably conserve her energy for shivering. “I can’t take this anymore. I'm going to go use the compass. At least it will be warm over there.”

At that moment, one of Hugo-1’s cameras popped up, and a slightly robotic voice said “Intention to use an unauthorised artefact detected. Countermeasures initiating.”

Sprinklers appeared on the ceiling, far above their heads, and a fine mist of neutralizer goo began to rain down.

Claudia pointed upwards. “How long have we had those?”

“Since forever.” Artie replied. Then, with all the sarcasm he could muster (which was actually a surprising amount), he said “Well done, Dawn.”

“Hey!” Dawn said indignantly. “It’s not my fault. It was a good plan… I just shouldn’t have announced it.”

~*~

As it turned out, Hugo-1 hadn’t actually just been modelled on the real Hugo, but was actually a fragment of his mind. Pete and Myka successfully managed to bring the rather deranged but fully human Hugo so that they could reintegrate them, using Max Wertheimer's zoetrope.

Once they had done so, Dawn declared that she was going outside to thaw, leaving the rest of the gang to deal with clean up. She felt slightly bad about that, but resolved that she would definitely help the next time something weird happened at the Warehouse. Which, she thought, would probably end up being tomorrow.

Later, when everyone went back to Artie’s office so he could start up the artefact equivalent of a hoover, to clean up the purple goo, they found that Hugo-1 hadn't just activated the sprinklers directly above them. They'd showered, if not the entire Warehouse, at the very least a substantial amount of it.

Artie was somewhat annoyed that his paperwork was now effectively ruined, and Claudia wasted no time in telling him that he should use a computer so that that sort of thing never happened.

“I shouldn’t have to use a computer.” Artie complained. “Paper has always worked fine for me, and it can't be hacked or changed. Its…” he trailed off as he saw something.

“What is it?” Claudia said, grinning. ”Conceding defeat, are…” she too trailed off into silence as she saw what Artie was looking at.

Amongst the papers strewn on Artie’s desk was a feather quill resting on top of an old notebook. Poe’s pen.

It was covered in neutralizer.

“Do you think Dawn saw it?” Claudia asked in a brittle voice. It was a vain hope, she knew. Dawn came to check on the pen religiously. If she had passed by, she undoubtedly would’ve checked on it, and seen this.

Nevertheless, Artie replied. “Probably.”

Despite this, Claudia maintained a hope that Dawn hadn't seen her artefact. She maintained this hope until they returned to the B&B to find that Dawn was nowhere to be found. A quick call to Joshua revealed that she hadn't turned up to their dinner.

How did you find someone who had received just about the worst news it was possible to get, and was possibly not in their right mind, when they had easy access to a teleporter?


	12. Chapter Twelve

Artie ushered Fargo away rather faster than was actually polite. As he did so, Pete muttered something about teleporting over to Sunnydale to see if Dawn had gone home. This made sense, as he was the only person unknown to both Buffy and Joyce. Claudia decided that she would go down to LA and see if Dawn had gone back to the psych ward, and Myka planned to go to Geneva and see if Dawn had gone there after all, but hadn't gone to see Joshua.

By the time Artie got back, everyone else was gone. He called Leena, telling her to be on the lookout in case Dawn came back, and then went to look around the Warehouse and see if he could find Dawn in there. It was a better choice than just sitting and waiting.

~*~

Although Pete had said that he was going to Sunnydale, that wasn’t actually the truth. He’d thought about where he would go if he were a young adult who’d just gotten some really bad news, and he’d promptly realised that Dawn might not have left Univille at all. He wouldn’t have.

Fortunately, Univille wasn’t all that large. There was only one bar that could be classified as a dive, and even then it didn’t measure up to some of the dives he’d been in when he’d still been an alcoholic.

As Pete walked in, he instantly saw a slim brunette sitting in a corner. By the look of things, she’d already started drinking, and she’d skipped straight to the spirits. That was bad. As far as Pete knew, Dawn had never so much as touched alcohol. Getting drunk on spirits would hit her hard.

Still, he could… actually, he hadn't the faintest idea what he could do. He hadn't planned this far. What could he even say?

So he walked over, and was about to sit down opposite her when the brunette looked up at him, tear-streaked mascara lining her brown eyes.

Brown eyes. It wasn’t Dawn. She didn’t even look like Dawn, not from the front. “Sorry, thought you were someone else.” Pete mumbled. He looked around again, and didn’t see anyone who could be Dawn. So he left.

~*~

The truth was, Dawn wasn’t in Univille, or Geneva, or the Warehouse, or LA, or Sunnydale. She would, however, soon be in the latter.

Dawn had been walking out of the Warehouse in order to warm up when she’d received a call from Buffy on the mobile that Artie had set aside specifically for that purpose. Dawn picked up. “Hey, Buffy, how’re you doing?”

“Me? Oh, um, I'm fine, I guess.” Buffy said. She sounded subdued, which worried Dawn. Her sister had been a cheerleader for a reason – being subdued really wasn’t part of her personality. “Listen, I haven’t called you at a bad time, have I? You don’t have, I don’t know, work things?”

“Nah, you called at a good time. I’ve dealt with all my work things for the time being.” Dawn said, and chuckled at that thought of calling nearly being frozen to death by an AI as a ‘work thing’. “What’s up?”

“Uh, you remember Ford. Billy Fordham?”

Dawn had to think for a bit before she remembered. “Oh, isn’t he that guy from Hemery who you had a crush on in fifth grade? The guy who was a year older than you?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” Buffy said quietly. “He’s dead. Turned into a vampire, actually, so he’s dead twice.”

Dawn thought about what Buffy hadn't quite said. She knew that Buffy had liked Ford, even if they’d drifted apart somewhat. She didn’t know the situation, but staking someone who you had known and liked was radically different from staking just some random vampire. “Listen, Buffy, do you want me to come over? I’m sure I can get an afternoon off. Death of a family friend and all that.”

Dawn fully expected Buffy to tell her not to come over, not to bother, and she was fully prepared to completely ignore her. Dawn was emotionally available, now, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be the utter failure that she’d been with regard to comforting Claudia when she had needed her to. While Buffy told her not to worry about it, Dawn cast a quick glance at Poe’s pen, enough to reassure her that, yes, it was still there, and headed out.

Dawn didn’t teleport straight to Sunnydale. Appearing that fast would be too suspicious. So she teleported to California and took the car that Myka had arranged to be permanently outside Joshua’s lab for just this sort of situation.

~*~

When Claudia arrived outside Joshua’s lab and saw that the car was gone, she was absolutely certain that Dawn had arrived and that she was on the right trail. She knew that was a good thing, but she couldn’t help dread the inevitable meeting. She’d half-hoped that one of the others would find her, because she wasn’t sure she could go through with it.

Claudia rubbed the hand that she had burnt using the Jubilee Grand Casino chip in order to see whether her theory about Dawn being trapped in the mirror had been correct. The burns had pretty much healed by now, but it was still a little sore. Nevertheless, Claudia wished she’d used it to help her figure out what she should do.

But she hadn't, so she stole a car and drove up to Grey's Psychiatric Hospital, and asked if she could visit one Dawn Summers.

Claudia felt like the bottom of her world had fallen away when the receptionist told her that Dawn wasn’t there and hadn't been for several weeks now. She left without a word on slightly unsteady feet.

It was only then that Claudia realised that she might be able to contact Dawn directly. She hadn't thought of it before because she was so used to Dawn locking herself into her room and not contacting anyone, ever. But there was still the possibility that Dawn would answer her if she used her Farnsworth. Claudia hoped so. She didn’t know what to do.

So Claudia got back into her stolen car and tried to contact Dawn. When she didn’t immediately pick up, Claudia thought that she wasn’t going to, and had almost given up when Dawn actually did answer. Claudia jerked slightly in surprise. “Dawn!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, Claud, that’s my name.” Dawn said, amused. “What’s up?” It was difficult to use a Farnsworth and drive at the same time, so she had precariously balanced it against the dashboard. It was the reason that she hadn't answered Claudia’s call immediately.

“Are you okay? Are you in a car? Where are you going?” Claudia asked, the questions jumping out of her mouth in a great rush.

“Whoa there, calm down! I’m fine, I'm all warmed up now. Nothing to worry about. And what do you mean, where am I going? I left a note at the B&B! I’m going to Sunnydale. A friend of Buffy’s died, so I thought I'd go over and be all sisterly!”

Claudia hadn't even thought about a note. She remembered the last one that Dawn had left, which had almost illegible and barely in English. If there had been a note, she was sure that someone would’ve found it by now. Which meant that Dawn hadn't left one.

However, that wasn’t really the problem at hand. The thing was, Dawn didn’t seem to know about the pen. Either that, or she was so deep in denial that she simply couldn’t believe what had happened and so was choosing to act as though it wasn’t. Claudia didn’t think that that was the case, though. Dawn wasn’t like that.

Claudia couldn’t bring herself to tell her. Not here, not like this. Truthfully, she doubted she would be able to even if Dawn was right in front of her and not driving. Claudia knew that talking to Dawn would be difficult, but she’d never thought that she would have to actually break news like this to her. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t even want to try, although she knew she should. So instead, she just said “It’s okay. We didn’t find your note, so when you weren’t around we thought you’d vanished again. Or HG had taken you, or something. Joshua wondered where you’d gone.”

Dawn shrugged. “Yeah, once the Warehouse crisis thing was over I’d have to have rushed like a rush-y thing in order to be only late, as opposed to not arriving over there tomorrow, ‘cause of the time difference. Then Buffy called, and I thought I wouldn’t bother. I was going to call him, but you’re not supposed to use a phone and drive, and besides, you called me first.”

“Okay.” Claudia said, in as calm a voice as she could manage. She was quite proud of how steady it was. “Just so long as you’re okay. Come back soon.”

“Sure thing.” Dawn said, wondering what was bothering Claudia. Before she could ask, though, Claudia hurriedly said goodbye and closed the Farnsworth.

~*~

As soon as she had stopped talking to Dawn, Claudia instantly called Artie. “She’s fine.” Claudia said, almost before Artie opened his Farnsworth. “She’s driving to Sunnydale to see her sister. Apparently a friend of hers, her sister’s, that is, just died.”

Artie digested this. “Is that really a good idea?”

“She doesn’t know, Artie.”

“She… she didn’t see it? You mean she…”

“That’s exactly what I mean, Artie. Dawn has no idea that she might start being schizophrenic again at any moment. I-I couldn’t tell her, Artie. I didn’t even want to try. Can’t we just let her have the rest of the day? It’s going to hard on her as it is.” Claudia asked.

Artie didn’t want to say that it might be dangerous for Dawn to be isolated from people who knew about artefacts right now. Besides the return of her schizophrenia, there was every chance that there might be other side-effects from the neutralisation of the quill. Even if there weren’t, if Dawn started seeing the Abomination at home then there was no way that she would be able to continue pretending to work for the NSA. Artie didn’t want to talk about any of that, or all the problems that it could cause, but it was his job.

However, before he started, he looked at Claudia. She looked fragile, in a way that she hadn't since… well, since Dawn had been cured. He remembered that it hadn't only been Dawn who had found the entire experience difficult. So, despite the fact that he knew that letting Dawn go to Sunnydale was a bad idea, he said “Yes. She can have the day.”

Claudia gave a brittle smile. “Thank you.”

Artie didn’t reply. He just hung up, and in a business-like fashion contacted everyone else, telling them what was going on.

~*~

“You came!” Buffy said cheerfully, when she opened the door and ushered her sister in, feeling slightly weird as she did so – after all, she knew Dawn still had a key to the house, so her knocking seemed odd. “I didn’t think you would, ‘cause of, you know, work stuff.”

Dawn shrugged. “Well, the NSA is a caring organisation.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard that before.” Buffy muttered. Then, a little louder, she said “Anyway, it’s good to see you. Mom’ll be over the moon.” 

“You know, I never understood that phrase.” Dawn said thoughtfully. “Why go over the moon when you’re happy? Why not, oh, limbo under a rainbow or something?”

Buffy laughed. “You sound like Will. Willow, I mean.”

Dawn smirked. “Well, all us intelligent science types have to stick together.” Then, seriously, she asked “How are you doing, anyway? Are you alright?”

Buffy shrugged. “Oh, you know. Same old same old.”

Dawn fought down the urge to point out that staking a friend was hardly usual, even by Slayer standards. “Yeah, but you actually knew Ford. It’s got to be different, doesn’t it?”

“Well, the fact that he tried to feed me to a bunch of vampires didn’t really do him any favours.” Buffy said, with a nonchalance that Dawn honestly couldn’t tell if it was genuine. “Besides, apparently he was dying from a brain tumour, anyway.”

Dawn, who hadn't known any of that, began to feel as though she was somewhat out of her depth. Finding out that someone had turned into a vampire was one thing, finding out that he tried to have your sister killed was quite another. “What? Is there some story that I’m missing here?”

Buffy told her everything, and by the end of it Dawn was beginning to think that, yes, Buffy’s nonchalance wasn’t all that misplaced.

“I guess it’s a good thing that he didn’t return your feelings back in fifth grade, then.” Dawn said drily.

Buffy waved a hand. “It’s not like I would’ve had time for that whole thing, once I became the Slayer.”

“How is Angel, anyway?”

Buffy looked at Dawn, surprised. “Are you asking about my boyfriend?”

Dawn absently twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Well, yes. The fact that I mentioned your boyfriend in a questioning tone should probably have given that away. What’s with the surprise?”

“Nothing. It’s just that, you’ve never been even the slightest bit interested in how he and I have been getting on before.”

Dawn shrugged. “It’s recently come to my attention that I am shockingly out of touch when it comes to interpersonal relationships. I thought I should probably make a bit of an effort.”

“What, do they have courses on ‘interpersonal relationships’ at the NSA now?” Buffy asked, amused.

Dawn’s lips quirked into a faint smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Anyway, it’s complicated. But then, my entire life is complicated. I’m the Slayer, complication kind of comes with the territory. Complications abound.” Then she cringed. “Sorry.”

“What? Why?” Dawn asked, completely baffled.

“Well, um, you’re a spy, and you used to be, um, anyway, yeah, your life is pretty complicated too.”

“You know,” Dawn said in a conversational tone, “I think I'm strong enough to deal with references to the fact that I used to be completely off my head. You don’t need to tiptoe around it. Besides, I'm here for you today, so feel free to complain about how complicated everything is to your heart’s content.”

Buffy slumped back in her chair, and looked at a point about six inches above Dawn’s head. Dawn thought that she wasn’t going to speak, but after a couple of seconds Buffy said “It would be nice if bad people really did have pointy horns or black hats. I liked Ford, and it turns out that he was actually kind of a villain, in a sad way.” Then she looked back at Dawn. “You should come back, you know. Stop working for the NSA. It’s nice when you’re around. I can trust you, and it’s really unlikely that you’ll turn into a hyena or run off with a robotic boyfriend. Why don’t you come back?”

Dawn sat still for several seconds. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Eventually, she said “I can’t. I-I have responsibilities.”

Buffy sighed. “I get it.”

~*~

After that, the conversation turned to lighter things, and Joyce came home and was indeed over the moon to see her daughter. Later that evening, Dawn said that she should probably leave. Joyce countered this by saying that it was late and she could stay the night. Dawn thought about it, but decided against it. When she’d spoken to Claudia earlier, she had definitely seemed like there was something bothering her. Dawn figured that she should probably go back and find out exactly what it had been. So she drove back to LA, and teleported from Joshua’s lab to outside the B&B.

When she went inside, Dawn was somewhat surprised to find that everyone was sitting in the dining room. She hadn't told anyone that she was coming back right at that particular moment, so there was no reason for them all to be waiting for her.

Then she saw Poe’s pen sitting on the table, and the expressions of the people sitting at the table, and she remembered the neutralising sprinklers that morning.

Dawn wished that she hadn't left Sunnydale. She wished she had never returned to the Warehouse. If she hadn't, then she wouldn’t be in this situation now. She wished that she had taken Buffy’s offer.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

“No.” Dawn said, staring at the quill because she couldn’t bring herself to look at her friends expressions. For good measure, just in case it would make this entire situation never have happened, she said “No. This can’t be happening.”

“Look, Dawn-“ Claudia began in a wretched voice.

“Claud, I-I’m going to my room. I need to, um, process this. Give me a few minutes before you come up, okay?” Dawn said quietly. It was only with a great effort of will that she managed to tear her eyes away from the quill. It seemed to have suddenly developed magnetic qualities. But she did, and she went upstairs, uncomfortably aware of the gazes resting on her back.

Artie was the first to break the silence. “Well, we’ve got a ping. We should probably, uh, take a look at it.”

Pete, who had been feeling mildly guilty that he felt as though the entire situation had gone better than he had expected, nodded vigorously and said “Yeah. Sure. That sounds good, Artie.”

Myka had been wondering if it might possibly be a better idea if someone other than Claudia went to speak to Dawn. Although it was Claudia who normally tried to sort out these situations, they didn’t usually end well. However, she couldn’t help but think that, if anyone could stop Dawn doing something rash, it would Claudia. So she just nodded absently and followed Pete.

Leena, for her part, just sat and stared at the spot where Dawn had been standing when she’d worked out what was happening.

Leena had expected Dawn’s aura to look like the ragged, multi-hued, distorted green mess that it had been when she had been schizophrenic. But it hadn't been. It had been the normal, smooth aura that it had been ever since she had used the pen.

Until the very moment that she had realised that the pen had been neutralised. Leena knew that, sometimes, neutralising an artefact took a little while to take hold. But it had been the better part of a day. It had seemed as though Dawn’s aura had reacted not to the pen being neutralised, but to Dawn’s realisation that it had. Even then, it hadn’t instantaneously torn itself apart, it had just… rippled, like something had been thrown at it. And when it had settled back, it hadn't quite settled the way it had been before. It looked – it felt subtly different.

Leena hadn't the faintest of ideas of what to make about that. She wasn’t an expert on artefact neutralisation and their effects on schizophrenic auras. She wondered if Artie would be able to shed some light on the situation. If not, then maybe Mrs Frederic could. She hoped so, anyway.

~*~

Claudia paused outside of Dawn’s door. She didn’t want to go in. It was the same feeling that she had had when she had decided not to tell Dawn about the quill. If she didn’t go in, if she didn’t face this, then it wouldn’t be real. Not really.

“I know you’re there, you know.” Dawn called from outside. “The landing is pretty creaky out there.”

Claudia, who had been expecting Dawn to either be having a panic attack or be packing to go back to the psych ward, blinked and opened the door.

Dawn was lying on her bed, hands locked behind her head and her legs crossed at the ankles. She didn’t look like someone who had just received some bad news. She looked more like someone who didn’t normally have a moment of free time deciding to take full advantage of it.

“So, how are you doing?” Claudia said, sitting at the edge of the bed. She knew it was a trite question, but it was all she could think to ask.

“Well, given that I woke up this morning planning for lunch in Geneva, then nearly got killed by a homicidal AI and then got the only thing keeping be sane neutralised… I'm not bad.”

Claudia frowned. That has sounded like sarcasm. From anyone else, she would have fully expected it to be sarcasm. If it had been her in Dawn’s position, she would have been so sarcastic that the paint on the walls would have peeled. But that hadn't sounded like sarcasm, and even on her good days Dawn hadn't been sarcastic. She had enough going on without that. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not going to lie, when I first saw you guys sitting around like that, I felt like I’d just turned up to my own funeral or something. But then I figured – the quill has been neutralised for hours now, and I’ve been fine. Haven’t even thought about monks or abominations. Plus, if I do go… you know, then that probably means that pen will work for me again and then I can go back to normal. So, yeah, things aren’t bad. I mean, as bad as they could be.”

“That’s surprisingly… optimistic of you.” Claudia said warily. She couldn’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop.

Dawn shrugged. “Oddly, I feel okay. I don’t feel crazy. I feel normal.”

Claudia smiled, a quick smile that was over in a second but was nevertheless extremely genuine. “That’s… um-“

“I know.” Dawn said, grinning.

~*~

Knowing that the pen was still around and that it would work in the event that she went off the deep end again was a great relief to Dawn. But, the truth was that she didn’t think that she would leap to straight back to the hallucinations and panic attacks. It had only been after months of dreaming about monks and that really creepy thing about languages and certain historical periods that she had even begun to suspect that she didn’t exist, and it had been quite a while after that that she had seen begun seeing the Abomination. She had plenty of time to be normal. Well, as relatively normal as life ever was for her, with a Slayer for a sister and a job in the Warehouse.

Of course, she did try the use the quill. She wasn’t sure if it did anything. She would have to wait and see.

While she did, though, Dawn decided that she was going to be normal. She was going to do normal things that, for one reason or another, she had never actually gotten around to doing.

For example, she went shopping with Claudia later that week. She’d never really been one for shopping, probably because Buffy had insisted on dragging her along when she went. Being dragged somewhere doesn’t usually help you enjoy the situation. So she went with Claudia, and was mildly surprised when she found that she quite liked it.

That is, up until the point when she realised that she had absentmindedly been keeping a running tally of the cost of everything the pair thought about getting, and that it was correct, down to the last cent. She shouldn’t be able to do that, she knew, not without a calculator. Not anymore.

Well, apparently, she was a human calculator again, which was nice. She’d quite enjoyed that. She didn’t tell Claudia, because she knew that she would worry that if that was back, the rest of Dawn’s problems wouldn’t be that far behind. Dawn knew they were, and she knew that when they eventually caught up with her, she could make them go away by writing a single word. It was an incredibly liberating feeling.

~*~

“What do you mean, her aura rippled?” Artie asked, bemused.

Leena shrugged. “It’s difficult to explain, if you can't see auras. But the thing is, it rippled when she realised that Poe’s quill had been neutralised it, not when it actually was. People don’t normally react like that. I thought you might know why Dawn did.”

“The quill is an unusual artefact, as it is. Besides the fact that it’s linked to Poe’s notebook, it’s also one of the only artefacts that actually calls to people, even if they haven’t used it. And it’s very powerful. It isn’t surprising that it works in an unusual way.”

“So, basically what you're saying is that you don’t know?”

It was Artie’s turn to shrug. “I’m saying we should wait and see.”

~*~

Pete was having a bad day. First of all, he’d nearly been killed by a maniac with a walking stick that caused earthquakes. Secondly, Mrs Frederic had told him to let the guy go, which went against every instinct he had. Thirdly, she’d told him that someone involved in the Warehouse was using their knowledge for personal gain, and that he had to keep it a secret from his team so as not to put them in harm’s way.

Then, because he had been being secretive, Pete was now being accused of drinking again. He’d been sober for almost ten years. There was no way that he was drinking again. He’d never go back there. He knew where that road led. But, unfortunately, he couldn’t tell why he couldn’t tell them what he was doing. It didn’t sound good, he knew, but when this was all done everything would be okay. Everything would be normal again.

“Would you stop doing that?” he suddenly snapped at Claudia. Claudia flinched, not sure what she had been doing wrong. “Sorry.” Pete said. “But the way you’re tapping your fingers together was just so loud.”

He left then. There wasn’t anything else he could say, not with Myka staring at him with such concern and Claudia sitting curled in on herself so that she took up as small a space as possible and Leena looked at him as though she could see right through him and Artie being just generally inscrutable and Dawn staring thoughtfully at her fingers. He couldn’t put any of them in harm’s way. It would be best for everyone if he just left. So he went to pack.

There was silence for several seconds after Pete left. For Dawn’s part, she barely noticed.

She knew that, back in the psych ward, Claudia had had a sort of nervous tick, something she did when she was thinking or worried. She pushed her thumb against each of her fingers. She’s stopped it, more or less, after leaving the ward. But she’s been doing it while they’d tried to stage an intervention for Pete. The only way that it could possibly be called audible was if you had vampiric hearing. Even then, it couldn’t be called loud.

Then there was the fact that he hadn't been able to tell them what he was involved in. Pete had clearly wanted to tell them, which meant that the only reason he wouldn’t have was because it would hurt them if he did.

Well, Dawn was uncomfortably familiar with having senses that played tricks on her. She was also familiar with hiding things from people that you love because of being afraid of hurting them.

More than that, she had recognised the expression on Pete’s face. She’d worn it often enough.

She didn’t know how it had happened, but Pete had come into contact with an artefact that was messing with his mind.

“Myka?” Dawn said suddenly, looking up from her fingers. “Did Pete touch anything while you went after the walking stick?”

Myka laughed, a short, mirthless laugh. “This is Pete we’re talking about. He touches everything. Why?”

Dawn shook her head. “Don’t ask me that. It’s too difficult to say.” She was thinking that Pete had had to touch something at the museum where they’d first seen the stick in action. Myka would’ve been too professional for that. “Do you remember what Pete touched?”

“Of course.” A thoroughly confused Myka replied.

“Okay then.” Dawn said, standing up. “It’s time for a little fieldtrip.”

Artie thought about demanding an explanation, but he realised that it was entirely possible that Dawn wouldn’t give him one. It wasn’t that she was secretive. It was just that she found it easier to explain things after everything was sorted out. She’d been the same way when she’d dealt with the Lenape artefacts.

So he let her and Myka go.

~*~

They used the teleporter to transport them and a tank of neutraliser goo to the museum. By that point, Myka thought that she understood what Dawn was thinking, so she helped her put everything that Pete had touched into the goo. Neither of them were good enough at figuring what artefacts might be to just go straight to the right one.

The right one turned out to be a telegram, which explained why Pete had been so disconcerted by Claudia’s tapping. They dunked it into the goo, and sparks flew.

~*~

Pete was driving when he blinked. He felt as though a band of pressure that had been wrapped around his head had just vanished. He hadn't even noticed that it was there. He pulled over, and picked up his Farnsworth. “Hey, Artie? I think I might have done something stupid…”

He came back. As it turned out, the telegram had been messing with his brain, and it would be a while before his brain returned to normal. Thankfully, Dawn and Myka had caught it before it could get much further. In the meantime, he had time off to sit and try and figure out which of the events of the last couple of days had actually happened.

Dawn came and sat next to him. Neither of them said a word.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything in this chapter about Hieronymus machines is true. They really exist.

Joshua was busy. Everyone who was working at CERN was. Although the Regents had hushed up the missing antimatter, everyone was still working overtime to get everything working again. He really didn’t have the time to be pursuing side projects.

However, he had been trapped in a pocket dimension for twelve years because he had tried to teleport. Now, someone had cracked it, and was willing to show him how. He couldn’t let that opportunity pass up. So he and Dawn had that dinner that they'd planned, and she brought her formula with her.

Joshua was afraid that he hadn't exactly been the most sociable of hosts. He’d been so absorbed in trying to figure out how Dawn had done it that he didn’t pay much attention to Dawn herself. He asked her to explain certain aspects, which she did. She even sketched a design of the actual machine on a napkin, along with a list of parts and how to assemble them.

They parted ways soon after that (Dawn had to get a flight back, because teleportation only worked one way) and Joshua went home with his head full. He sat up for the better part of the night, just staring at the equation. It made sense. Looking at it, every part of it fit together, and it all made sense. The solution was elegant.

It was also impractical. He’d tried that, or something similar, and he had had Rheticus’ compass. Dawn shouldn’t have been able to teleport across the room, let alone from South Dakota to Geneva. As far as he could tell, Dawn’s equation was wrong. But it worked, which had to mean that he had been wrong. That galled him – maybe if he'd done it right all those years ago, then he wouldn’t have wasted a dozen years. He and Claudia could’ve had a normal life.

So Joshua set about making his own machine. It was the only thing he could think of to do. Of course, he felt nervous doing so. His track record with this sort of thing wasn’t exactly stellar. But he had to see if Dawn was right.

So he built it.

It didn’t work. He took it apart, built it again. It still didn’t work. He knew that he’d built it correctly. It wasn’t working. There was no reason why it shouldn’t work. If it worked for Dawn, then it should work for everyone. Indeed, Dawn had told him that everyone involved at the Warehouse had used it at one time or another. It couldn’t be just him.

So he did some research, trying to find out why he couldn’t do it. This was difficult, as he couldn’t tell anyone the details and for most of the world teleportation belonged to the realm of science fiction. But eventually, Joshua found something which seemed to provide an explanation.

~*~

“Have you ever heard of a Hieronymus machine?”

Dawn yawned groggily. She’d been asleep when Joshua had called. Apparently he'd forgotten to take the time difference into account. “Nice to see you too, Josh.”

“Yes, yes, hello, how are you, I'm fine, thank you, now have you heard of a Hieronymus machine?” Joshua said tersely.

Dawn tried to shift her brain into gear. It wasn’t cooperating. She needed more sleep. “Don’t think so. Can’t you call back at a more reasonable time? My brain isn’t working that great right now. Ironically.”

Joshua blinked. He’d completely forgotten that there was a time difference. Truthfully, he hadn't even remembered what time it was in Geneva, let alone South Dakota. “This is important, Dawn. Really important.”

Dawn sighed. It really was too early for this. She knew that she’d been an insomniac before, probably would be again, but that didn’t mean that she was ready for dealing with crises when even Artie was still asleep. Still, Joshua thought this was important, and he hadn't ever sounded this urgent before. She couldn’t imagine what he thought was so important, but she also knew that she wouldn’t get back to sleep if she told him to call back later. The curiosity would be too much for her. “Fine. What’s a Hieronymus machine?”

“It was a machine, built in the ‘50s. The guy who built it had this theory that every material gives of a unique radiation, something like a cross between optical radiation, you know, visible light and that, and electricity.”

Dawn frowned. “They don’t, though. That’s ridiculous. I know that everything gives off radiation, but that’s from stars and stuff. Most things don’t make their own radiation.”

“Well, Hieronymus thought that this ‘eloptic’ radiation, as he called it, could be used to find out what sort of ore there was in rocks, amongst other things. He built a machine to measure it. Apparently, when someone used it they felt a tingling sensation when it detected the radiation.”

“So, it was an artefact, right? I mean, it sounds like your saying this machine can do something physically impossible, but it needs a human. So it’s got to be an artefact, doesn’t it?”

Joshua didn’t answer, just continued talking. “See, according to some studies, the machine didn’t work for everyone. Some people thought it worked by faith. You know, like only people who actually believed in eloptic radiation could actually sense it.”

“Okay, that’s a cool story, but why did you have to wake me up at 3 in the morning to tell me?” Dawn said, stifling a yawn.

“I think your teleporter works in the same way.”

“You what?” Dawn said, astonished. “Of course it doesn’t. I'd never even heard of eloptic radiation before you just told me about it. How could I possibly use it in my equation? Most of it was based on your work, anyway!”

“No. I think that your teleporter only works if you believe it will.” Joshua replied calmly.

“What? Don’t be stupid. It works because of this little thing called science. You might have heard of it. There was no pseudoscience involved. Sure, it might be fringe science, but it uses sound physics. Don’t be stupid.” Dawn said, offended.

“I looked through your work, Dawn. I tried something similar to you, and it didn’t work. I didn’t even get the results I did when I… you know. And before you say anything, I know I had an artefact and that makes everything different, but when I built your machine I didn’t think that it would actually work, because it didn't when I tried that. And it didn’t. I know I'm building it right, Dawn, I'm at least a good an engineer as my sister, but it didn’t work. Because I didn’t actually think it would.”

“But that’s ridiculous.” Dawn pronounced. “I used it to get to Switzerland. You saw me teleport in. Everyone here has used it, and it worked just fine for them. It worked for them, and it worked for me. I don’t care what you say, you clearly built it wrong if it didn’t work for you.”

“I didn’t, Dawn.” Joshua said gently. “I know you d-“

“Shut up. Just, just shut up, okay? You’re, you’ve got to be wrong.” Dawn said. Then she hung up. She didn’t want to talk to Joshua anymore, couldn’t do it. He was wrong. Had to be wrong. She rubbed her throat, wondering why she suddenly seemed to be having trouble breathing. Her hands were sweating, she noticed.

It wasn’t until several minutes later, after Dawn had calmed down a little, that she realised that she had just had a panic attack. Her first, for a long time.

~*~

Artie, as usual, thought he was the first person to get up. Since Dawn had gotten over her insomniac tendencies, he usually was. So, when he came downstairs he was taken completely by surprise to find Dawn sitting at the table with the mug of coffee in front of her. The mug was full, and looked like it had been there for a long time. Artie suddenly had a strong sense of foreboding. “Dawn?” he asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Dawn answered rapidly, almost before Artie had even finished speaking. “What if someone said something about something that someone had built that clearly wasn’t true, but had demonstrable proof that the thing actually was true, no matter how untrue it might sound?”

Artie tried to make sense of that. He really did. Normally, he was pretty good at puzzles, but he usually had some sort of frame of reference for them. Here, he had no idea what Dawn could be talking about. He had to admit the possibility that she wasn’t talking about anything real at all. “Uh, Dawn. I don’t understand.”

So Dawn told him what Joshua had said about the Hieronymus machine. She did so in halting, incomplete sentences that Artie had to string together and complete himself, but eventually he understood what Dawn was talking about. “Wait here a moment.” Artie said, while he went to fetch his black bag.

He was back a minute later, and he began rummaging through it, trying to find what he was looking for. Eventually, with a moue of triumph, he pulled out a small, plain wooden box, which he handed to Dawn. “Go on. Open it.”

Dawn did so, somewhat warily. Inside was a small glass fairy, about six inches high. It was incredibly well carved, and looked just like Dawn always imagined a fairy to look. She took it out, turned it over in her hands. It was a glass fairy. If it was meant to do anything else, she couldn’t figure out how. She put it back in the box, closed it, and handed it back to Artie. “I don’t get it.”

Artie just smiled and opened the box. The fairy flew out, and began flying around the room like a butterfly. It didn’t even look like glass anymore – it was lit by some sort of inner light that made it brighter than a firefly. It was like a miniature sun was flying around the room. “It used to belong to J.M. Barrie.” Artie began, before realising that now might not be the time to get into the history of the author of Peter Pan. “Basically, if you believe that the box has a fairy in it, then it will.”

“Schrodinger’s fairy.” Dawn said absently, eyes following the fairy in question. “I don’t get it. What does this have to do with me?”

“You may have made an artefact. No, hear me out. Not all artefacts are made by chance, or by someone going through something which imbues something of theirs with powers. Sometimes they’re built. Oh, I'm sure you didn’t mean to, but you wouldn’t be the first. It is possible that you made an artefact that will teleport you, but only if you believe that it will.”

“So artefacts can be affected by belief.” Dawn said under her breath. “I’d never thought of it that way before.”

“Your machine might be perfectly sound, scientifically speaking, but artefacts don’t work like that. They always act strangely.”

Dawn flashed a smile at him. Artie was so relieved to see that that he didn’t pay any attention to how strained it looked. “Thanks, Artie, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Artie watched her return to her room. He hoped she would be okay.

~*~

It had been a long time since Dawn had written on the walls. She’d used to have them covered in sheets of paper (or more accurately, Leena had) so that she could work easily on her teleportation theory. Once she’d solved it (or thought she had) there had been no need for her to continue.

There wasn’t any paper on the walls now, but Dawn didn’t care about that. She had a pen, and something which she needed to work out. The walls were the ideal space for that.

Axiom: Poe’s pen cured me. Both of schizophrenia and the effects of my clozapine overdose.

Theory 1: it did so, and cannot do so again until I reach the correct mental state for the pen to be used.

Theory 2: I believed that it would, and so it did. I do not believe that the pen can cure me now, as the pen requires a specific mental state which I do not have. Ergo, using it does not cure me.

Theory 3: my teleportation machine somehow cured me. I used the pen shortly after teleporting, and the pen has not worked for me since. Research required.

Theory 4: a combination of the two artefacts cured me. Perhaps the teleporter cured my physical disease, and the pen the mental. Research required.

Theory 5: I am the Key. My own energy cured me. Query: does sentient energy have an immune system? Unverifiable. Ask Abomination.

Theory 6: I was never cured, and am in fact still in a mental facility in LA.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The information about clozapine in this chapter is correct.

Artie went to the Warehouse after speaking with Dawn. Although he sat at his desk with his paperwork next to him, his computer monitor on and his fingers on the keyboard as though he was about to write something, the fact was that Artie wasn’t paying attention to any of these things.

He was thinking about what Leena had told him, after she had seen the way that Dawn’s aura had changed when she had seen the pen. He hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation for it, then. He thought that he might be able to, now.

Poe’s quill was an unusual artefact, even as artefacts went. Most artefacts didn’t actively seek people to use them, but by all accounts the boy who had used the quill had heard it whispering to him, urging him to steal it. Both the quill and the notebook seemed to have been drawn to people with a love for the written word, which Dawn-the-physicist didn’t have. Of course, the boy hadn’t been particularly stable either, which definitely included Dawn.

He wondered, now, if Dawn hadn't been right to wonder if the quill had only worked for her because she had believed that it would. Artie had had his suspicions about her schizophrenia ever since he had heard about it. Believing that you were a ball of energy worshipped by monks certainly sounded crazy, but then Artie worked with crazy every day. At the Warehouse, every day was crazy. It was entirely possible that Dawn had come into contact with an artefact at some point and it had affected her mind. It was even possible that the artefact worked in a similar way to J.M Barrie’s fairy. He knew that Dawn had had problems either believing or disbelieving that the Abomination was real. Quite possibly, the artefact that had affected her had preyed upon that. Then, when Dawn had used the quill (which definitely had the power to cure her) she had finally fully believed that the Abomination wasn’t real and had therefore shaken off the effects of the other artefact – until Dawn had seen that the pen had been neutralised and therefore that any beneficial effects it had upon her had ended.

It made sense. It fitted. Except for the fact that Dawn didn’t seem to have any artefacts on her. She’d brought barely anything with her from home, instead buying most of her things when she got here.

Of course, the artefact could be at her house. She had been visiting home, the day that she had discovered that the quill had been neutralised. She could have come into contact with it again…

~*~

After writing her theories on the wall, Dawn didn’t immediately rush off to test any of them. Nor did she go into a panic because several of them depended on her being the Key or insane. She simply sat and thought about them, as calmly as she could.

She felt that she could safely discount the last theory. It had been months since she had left the psychiatric ward, and she didn’t think that she could hallucinate for that long. Anyway, hallucinating that she was hallucinating just seemed to ridiculous, even to her.

She couldn’t do anything about the fact that the pen required her to have a specific mental state. She hadn't gotten that far yet. She hadn't even had the dreams yet, let alone a hallucination of the Abomination. Similarly, unless the Abomination actually showed up, she couldn’t ask it about the physiology of the Key.

A thought occurred to her. If she was slowly returning to her schizophrenic state, then it would be reasonable to assume that she was going to get the side effects of the anti-psychotics she had taken, up to and including the overdose. As yet, Dawn hadn't even suffered from insomnia, and that had been amongst the first adverse effects she had developed. On top of that, she supposed that she would have to take the anti-psychotics again, because who knew how bad her symptoms would be without them?

Still, one thing at a time. Dawn remembered what the effects of Invega and Clozaril had been, but she wasn’t sure what the effects of an overdose were. She hadn't exactly been in much of condition to remember, even while she was having them. So, she supposed, she should probably start by finding out what they were.

So Dawn sat on her floor with her legs crossed, waiting for Claudia to wake up so that she could borrow her computer. She knew that she could ask one of the others for one, but she didn’t really want to be bothering them with this. Truthfully, she didn’t really want to involve Claudia, either, but Dawn figured that the younger woman knew her well enough to know why she was looking into this.

~*~

Claudia had only just woken up, gotten dressed and made her way out into the corridor when Dawn materialised at her elbow. Claudia wondered vaguely if she’d teleported there or had just been waiting outside her room. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Jeez, Dawnie. Good morning to you too.”

“Morning, Claud. Mind if I borrow your laptop?” Dawn said, speaking so soon after Claudia had finished that there was no appreciable gap.

Claudia frowned as her sleep-fogged brain processed the request. Dawn didn’t like computers. She said they gave her a headache. She didn’t even own one, which Claudia privately thought was practically a sin in this day and age. On top of that, Dawn didn’t really need one, or at least she hadn't before she had used Poe’s pen. Her ability to be a human calculator and her near encyclopaedic knowledge of certain time periods and fluency in numerous languages (gained, incidentally, from the university library) meant that Dawn was largely self-sufficient. “Why?”

Dawn took a deep breath. She had contemplated lying to Claudia, but had decided against it. If only because Claudia would know she was lying. “I want to find out what the effects of a clozapine overdose are.”

Claudia blinked, and rubbed her eyes. “Could you run that by me again?”

“I want to find out what-“

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. The question is, why?”

Dawn explained her reasoning, and Claudia nodded. It made sense, as much as these things ever did. “You know I could find them out for you, right? Probably in, like, five seconds, because I'm just that good.”

Dawn smiled briefly, appreciative of the fact that Claudia wasn’t being all sombre about the admittedly sombre topic. “I know, but I think I should do it myself, you know?”

“Sure, whatever. Just don’t, uh, eat near it. Or drink. Or have Pete the ferret nearby. Or Pete the human. Or-“

Dawn smiled again. “I get the picture, Claud.”

“’m just saying.”

~*~

Sometime later, after Dawn had persuaded Claudia to stop hovering (whether it was because of her or because of the laptop, she wasn’t entirely sure) and she opened the browser and began to research.

However, as soon as she actually found a site that looked as though it would tell her exactly what she wanted to know, Dawn’s phone rang. Which meant that it could only be either Buffy or Joyce, given that Artie had finally given her a Farnsworth. Dawn contemplated ignoring it – both of them checked in fairly regularly. She was always thankful that she was supposedly working for the NSA so that she could say that she couldn’t say anything about what she was doing.

After a few rings, though, she decided to pick up. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t read and talk at the same time. Besides, who knew? It might be important.

“Hi.” Dawn said, holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder.

“Hey, Dawnie. How’re you doing?”

“Oh, you know me. I'm fine.” ...sedation, delirium… “How’s things up in the ‘dale?”

“Oh, you, know.” Buffy said airily. Then she became more serious, and Buffy realised that Buffy actually wanted to talk to her about something. “Not great, actually.”

“What’s up?” …tachycardia, respiratory failure…

“Well, um…” Buffy paused. “There’s this demon…”

Dawn nodded absently. This wasn’t anything new. “There usually is.” …seizures, cardiac failures…

“Not like this one. See, the thing is, he’s supposed to be, like, invincible and capable of destroying the human race. Like, all by himself.” Buffy said, all in a rush.

“Uh huh. Invincible how?”

“Like in the sense that last time he showed up, it took an army of knights to take him down. Apparently he killed most of it, they cut him into pieces and hid him around the world. But, you know, the pieces are still alive.”

“Lovely.” Dawn stopped reading for a bit. She suspected that Buffy’s impending apocalypse might be just a bit more urgent than what she was doing. “I guess you’d better stop this demon from being put back together then.”

“About that…” Buffy said wretchedly.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I'm flattered that you’re calling me with this, but what exactly do you expect me to do? I'm not exactly an army, Buff.”

“Yeah, but I thought that if anyone would have any ideas of how to beat an invincible demon…”

“Immortal.” Dawn corrected automatically. “He can’t die, but he can be beaten.”

“Yeah, thanks, Teach.”

“Sorry.” Dawn said. “So, have you seen it yet? ‘cause I'm pretty sure that you can do a pretty credible impression of an army all on your own. You could charge at it with your millions of sharp things, and…” Dawn trailed off.

Buffy waited for her sister to respond, but when the silence dragged on just a little bit too long she said “Dawn? Are you still there?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Look, how urgent is this thing? Is the demon going to start wiping out the human race in the next couple of hours?”

Buffy shrugged, before realising that Dawn couldn’t see her. “Don’t know. We only just lost the piece we had. But yeah, I doubt there’ll be a full on Armageddon just yet. Why?”

“Look, don’t do anything rash, okay? I’ll be there in a couple of hours. At the house. Wait for me, okay?”

“Okay, sure thing.” Buffy said, feeling rather confused. “Bu-“

“See you there.” Dawn interrupted, hanging up. Okay. So she had a plan. Something resembling a plan, anyway.

But, before she put it into action, there was something she needed to do. Something that had caught her attention, when she’d been talking, but she hadn't wanted to give any attention to it.

So she turned back to the computer, and read.

Fatal overdoses have been reported with clozapine, generally at doses above 2500 mg. There have also been reports of patients recovering from overdoses well in excess of 4 g.

Dawn sat back. She had been taking 25mg tablets. She honestly couldn’t remember how many she had taken, but they hadn't been very big. She supposed it was possible she had managed to swallow 100. But that wasn’t the interesting part.

The interesting part was that people had survived well over a fatal dose. Dawn almost certainly hadn't taken that much, and she had been treated for it. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious after taking them, but it had to have been at least a few hours. She also didn’t know how effective the treatment was, or even if she had been having the standard treatment. She did work at the Warehouse, after all.

The bottom line was, it was possible that her physical problems may not have been cured by either her teleporter or by the pen. She couldn’t know.

However, Dawn realised, it was also completely irrelevant, at least for the moment. She wasn’t suffering from a recurrence of her antipsychotic symptoms, and she didn’t know if she would. But still, it was interesting to know.

But, right then, Dawn was more interested in the idea that had come to her while she was talking to Buffy. She had realised, if the demon could be killed by an army, it couldn’t be entirely impervious to blades. Maybe it just had tough skin. Anyway, what Buffy needed was something sharper than your average blade.

Say, for example, a sword that could split light.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Dawn stood staring at the Japanese sword which was so sharp that it could split light. It had been recovered when MacPherson had been captured. She was somewhat wary of picking it up. Not because it was dangerous, although it most certainly was. She wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t dangerous. She didn’t want to steal from the Warehouse, because that would be crossing a line. Dawn was fully aware that she was more of liability to the Warehouse than she was a help, but stealing? That was a whole other thing. She could be kicked out for that, and she had no idea what she would do then. Other than having a complete nervous breakdown, which was more likely than just about any of the other options she could come up with.

On the other hand, she needed the sword. Being kicked out of the Warehouse might be really, really bad for her, but it would be a lot worse for everyone if an immortal demon went and killed everyone on the planet. So she had to take the sword, no matter what the consequences for herself. She knew that. But standing here, right now, Dawn was having difficulty making her hand close the gap between herself and the sword and actually pick it up.

Then Dawn saw that there was a pair of yellow rubber gloves on the shelf below the sword. They, she realised, would be perfect. If she wore them, there would be no fingerprints on the sword. She knew that she had managed to get here without anyone seeing her, and assuming that she could make it to the B&B without being seen with the sword – well, actually, that wasn’t much of a problem, given that the sword made people invisible. But when she put it back, there wouldn’t be anyway that Artie would ever suspect that it was her who had taken it.

Dawn had a vague suspicion that there was something wrong with her logic here, but she couldn’t quite figure out what. She didn’t really have the time to think about it, either, because Buffy hadn't been sure when exactly the demon was going to end the world, so she should get there as fast as possible. She’d have to drive down from LA, unfortunately, because turning up on the front doorstep with a sword would raise suspicions on all sides. So she had no time to waste.

Dawn reached out to put on the yellow rubber gloves, only to jump when someone behind her suddenly barked “Don’t touch those!” Dawn flung them away from herself convulsively, as though they might possibly be poisonous.

Suddenly, Artie was in front of her. Dawn was absolutely certain that he hadn't been there when she had first arrived, so she supposed that she should give him some credit for being sneaky. On the other hand, he had just sacred her half to death, so she didn’t really feel all that inclined to give him anything. “Uh, what's the problem, Artie?”

Artie huffed and bent to pick up the gloves. This somewhat annoyed Dawn, because she had thought that she might possibly have activated some kind of artefact that would do something horrible, like turn her into a rubber glove or something, and here was Artie picking them up as though they were just, well, a pair of yellow rubber gloves. “Do you know what these are, Dawn?”

“Um, I'm guessing that a pair of yellow rubber gloves is the wrong answer?” Dawn said, more than a little nervously.

“These belonged to a man named Konrad Lorenz. He used these gloves so that new-born geese would imprint on him and think that he was their mother.”

“Why?” asked a thoroughly nonplussed Dawn.

“It was a psychologica- you know what? It’s not important. The important thing is that these gloves, after being touched, imprint on the person who touched them. The imprint doesn’t break until that person dies. It can't be neutralised. As a result, if the person who touches the gloves is the first person seen by a new-born baby, of any species, that creature will imprint on that person. You would not believe the problems we had with cultists using this.”

Dawn puzzled her way through that. “But you touched them. You're touching them right now.”

“Because they’re imprinted on you, Dawn.” Artie said patiently. “They won't work for anyone else.”

“Okay. Well, I wasn’t planning on becoming a midwife anyway, so I'm just going to leave now, okay…” Dawn said, turning around in the vain hope that Artie wouldn’t ask her what she was dong there.

“I’m not done with you yet, missy. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Well, firstly, missy? Really? Secondly, I wanted to borrow the sword.” Dawn said. She hoped that Artie would hold of her asking her just why, because she didn’t have a good enough lie just yet.

Sadly, it was no to be. “Why?” Artie asked.

“Because, um, it’s really sharp, and I'm interested in the possibility of the fact that it might possibly be able to make people faster, because it bends the air out behind them making them more aerodynamic, and, oh, it’s an artefact, so if my teleporter is an artefact than there is every chance that the two will interact, and I wanted to visit my family anyway so I thought I'd borrow the sword and see if it could make the journey go faster than, you know, instantaneous. Because that would be really cool, even though the chances of it actually happening would be pretty low, for all kinds of reasons.” Dawn took a deep breath, feeling rather pleased with herself. The excuse hadn't been too bad, given that she had only come up with it midway through her speaking.

Artie tried to work out what Dawn had just said. He couldn’t manage it. “What?”

“Well, the sword might make people go faster. The teleporter makes people travel faster. If they’re both artefacts, then the sword might interact with the teleporter, making the traveller go faster. And I want to see my sister, so I'm going to be teleporting anyway, so…”

“Why didn’t you just ask to borrow the sword?”

“Because you’d say no.” Dawn said, as though that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, yes, of course I’d say no. Dawn, you know how you react to artefacts. I don’t really think that taking this sword to Sunnydale would be a good idea. We don’t even know if it could handle being teleported, let alone how your aura might affect it.” Artie said. Then he thought of something.

Artie rather suspected that Dawn owned an artefact which was making her schizophrenic. He suspected that it was at her house, because he couldn’t work out how else she could’ve been exposed to it. So, having her go back might be a good idea, in terms of conclusively proving that the artefact was there. If she got worse, then it would mean that the artefact was there. Artie didn’t feel comfortable with using Dawn as a guinea pig like that, but he couldn’t really see any other options. Besides, if it resolved the situation, it wouldn’t matter in the long run if Dawn got a little bit worse for a short while. Compared to being better, being cured, it wouldn’t matter.

“Yeah, I kind of thought you would say something like that.” Dawn mumbled.

“You know what? Take the sword.”

“What?” Dawn said, staring at him incredulously. That was completely, utterly not what she had expected. She had expected to be in trouble, to get kicked out of the Warehouse and then letting the world end because she hadn't managed to get the sword. Being offered it, after everything Artie had just said, didn’t make sense.

“Look, this business with the teleporter is obviously important to you. If this helps prove that it is or isn’t an artefact, then that’s good. I also came to find you to tell you that we have a ping, so it might be a good idea if you spend some time with your family anyway, so-“

“Wait. Hold on a second. Why would you tell me that there’s been a ping? You never tell me there’s been a ping. You're famous for not telling me there’s been a ping. So why would you tell me there’s been one and then send me home? It doesn’t m- oh, no. You can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Artie said, feeling uncomfortably sure that he in fact knew exactly what Dawn was referring too.

“Pete’s still on bed-rest duty after that stuff with the telegram thing, and you don’t send just one agent out into the field, so Myka’s not going to be alone, ‘cause you’re going to send Claudia. Which you can't do, because she’s underage and not Secret Service and has less field experience than a mouse.”

“She has to go, Dawn. She’s the only one who can. I can’t send Myka off by herself. Besides, if she’s going to be here she’s going to have to go out in the field at some point. She needs experience, Dawn, and this is the only way she’s going to get it. She is ready, Dawn, you know that.”

“I don’t know that! You could go. I know that field work isn’t really your thing, what with your eyebrows and stuff, but you’ve got about four billion years of experience, so you can do just fine. She’s a child, Artie!”

“She isn’t though, is she? Not really. She didn’t really get a childhood. She’s been on her own since she was seven. She’s not a child, and she is ready for this. Besides, Myka is very good at what she does, and she’ll make sure that Claudia is fine. Nothing’s going to happen to her, but she is going to go.”

“I can see I'm not going to win this, but I'm still going to protest. And you're definitely not going to be using my teleporter to get them wherever it is that they’re going. They can fly just like everyone else.”

“We can discuss that at the B&B, during the briefing.” Artie said gently. “Come on. Let’s go. Oh, and Dawn?”

“Yes?” Dawn snapped.

“You might want to bring the sword.”

~*~

Claudia’s face immediately after she was told that she was going to go out on a mission bore a remarkable resemblance to Dawn’s after she had been told she could borrow the sword. “You’re kidding. Are you kidding? Because dude, if you're kidding, then that’s just not cool.”

“I’m not kidding. You’re really going on a mission.” Artie said gravely, hoping that he could impart some of the gravity to Claudia. The effect of this was somewhat spoiled by the fact that Pete was sitting next to him and trying to fit an entire plate of cookies in his mouth all at once.

“I’m going on a mission!” Claudia said excitedly, punching the air. “That is so cool!”

Dawn wanted to speak. She wanted to say “No, it isn’t. You're going to get yourself killed, or possibly won't, and if you don’t then it will only be because Myka did something clever at the last moment, and then you’ll feel all confident and then you’ll end up going on other missions until eventually one of them kills you, at which point I’ll probably completely lose my mind.”

But she didn’t. She didn’t say that because she knew that, if she did, Claudia would probably refuse the assignment. She would do that for her, and she probably wouldn’t even resent her for it, because Claudia was always there for Dawn, in ways that Dawn just couldn’t manage to reciprocate. She didn’t want Claudia to go and put herself in danger, but Claudia wanted to go. Dawn wasn’t often able to be supportive, but she could be now. She knew Claudia well enough to know that, beneath the excitement, she was really, really nervous. So she wasn’t going to cut her down. She was going to be encouraging, even though everything in her screamed that she shouldn’t be, because Claudia needed the support. Even if she didn’t know it.

So, Dawn said “Yeah, it is. You’re going to do great, Claud. I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it.” And she smiled, and it was a warm, honest smile, and Claudia was too caught up in the moment to notice that it didn’t reach her eyes.

~*~

A few minutes later, Dawn was driving from LA to Sunnydale, the sword safely in the back of the car. She called home, telling Buffy that she would be there soon and made her promise not to do anything rash before she got there. Then Dawn proceeded to drive as close to the speed limit as she could.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

“Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the library?”

The Sunnydale High receptionist looked at Dawn in surprise. Dawn got the distinct impression that she wasn’t used to being asked anything. Then, upon seeing the sword that Dawn was carrying (because, really, hiding a big samurai sword was out of the question) her face lit with understanding. “Oh, are you here for Mr Giles’ fencing class?”

“Yes.” Dawn said, even though she was clearly several years older than any of the other students here, and it was January now so if she hadn't figured out where the library was by now then she probably wasn’t about to join a fencing class there. On top of that, it was now very late, around the time of day in which schools normally closed. In fact, Dawn could see cleaners bustling around cleaning up the detritus of the day.

“Well, if you just turn that way, and then that way you’ll be there.” The receptionist made, making the requisite hand gestures.

“Okay, thanks.” Dawn asked, not entirely sure how helpful those directions were.

~*~

“Buff, you would not believe how lax your receptionist-“ Dawn began as she walked into the library. The reason that she had stopped speaking was that there were people there. People she didn’t know. It had been a long time since she’d met people she didn’t know. Admittedly, she had met Willow and Xander a couple of times, and been introduced to Giles, but she’d barely spoken ten words to any of them. And now there were more people who she couldn’t even begin to recognise. “Um, hi.”

“Dawn, you made it!” Buffy said, standing and moving towards her sister as though she possibly intended to hug her, but stopped short when she saw the sword in her arms. “And you’ve brought a sword.”

“Um, yeah.” Buffy said, offering her the sword. “Happy Birthday.”

Buffy smiled. “I thought you’d forgotten about it.”

“I did that once, and I was in hospital with the ‘flu. You can’t really blame me for that.”

Buffy’s smile dropped a few notches as she remembered the event in question. “No, I guess not. Anyway, you do know that I have, like, a gazillion swords already?”

“Yeah, but what was I supposed to get the Slayer who has everything?”

One of the people that Dawn didn’t know said “Since when does Buffy have a sister?” in a voice which was clearly intended to be quiet but failed that test on just about every level.

“Since she was born.” Dawn said cheerfully, trying not to remember the last time that she had met a large group of people like this. She hadn’t done well in group therapy. “I’m Dawn.”

“Cordelia.” Cordelia said perfunctorily. “Why hasn’t Buffy ever mentioned you? Are you, like, the black sheep or something?”

Dawn felt somewhat taken aback by this. Xander gently nudged Cordelia, who looked at him as though he had lost his mind. “Uh, no. But you know how it is. The cool cheerleader sister doesn’t want to acknowledge the nerdy sister who’s off studying physics. Doesn’t do much for her street cred.” Dawn frowned. “School cred?”

Buffy, wanting to diffuse the tension, said “Shouldn’t this sword have a guard?” she gestured at the point where the blade met the hilt.

“Yeah, but this one doesn’t.” Dawn said, knowing that the guard was currently in the back of her car. Without it, the sword wouldn’t split light, thus avoiding any unpleasant questions about she came to have a ‘magical’ sword, but it was still absurdly sharp. “I figured that you were the Slayer, a little thing like no guard shouldn’t bother you.”

“Hmm.” Buffy said.

“You study Physics?” Willow asked with interest. “Where?”

“UCLA.” Dawn said, not bothering to say that she had dropped out and was now working for the NSA. Which was as close to the truth was she was going to come.

“Not Caltech?”

“Got a scholarship to UCLA. Plus it was nearer to home.”

“Much as I hate to interrupt this, there is a dangerous demon around.” Giles said. “We really should endeavour to find out as much about it as we can.”

“We know as much as we need to know. I still say Buffy and I should go hunting for it, see if we can take it down before it gets up to full strength.” Angel said. At least, Dawn assumed it was Angel. She’d never actually met him, and had only seen him from a distance a couple of times. She had always assumed that Buffy was wary about her sister meeting her boyfriend.

“Wow. You look a lot older than I expected.”

“Yeah, he really wears those centuries badly.” Xander mumbled under his breath.

“You what? Centuries?” asked Dawn, confused.

“Um, Dawn? I might possibly have forgotten something about Angel.” Buffy said uncomfortably.

“He’s a vampire.” Cordelia supplied helpfully.

“Yeah, thanks for that, Cordy.”

A diminutive ginger murmured to Willow “I thought vampires were the bad guys.”

“Except for Angel.”

“Okay.”

“Hold on, you’re dating a vampire?” Dawn exclaimed. “That’s kind of a big detail to leave out, don’t you think?”

Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. “You know how it is.”

“I know how it is dating a vampire? No, not really.”

“See, I told you I wasn’t the only one who got the wig from that.” Xander said triumphantly to no one in particular.

“If we could get back to the business at hand…” Giles prompted.

“Yeah, well, anyway, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to start at the factory. Spike’s gang is generally around there somewhere.” Buffy suggested.

“I’ll come with you.” Angel stood.

“Hold it right there, Vlad. I'm going to have a word with my sister first.”

“Dawn, do you really think that-“

“Yes, this is exactly the time. Let’s go over there. Now.”

~*~

Once Dawn had led her sister deep enough into the library that she felt that even her beau’s vampiric hearing couldn’t hear them, she said turned to her sister and said “So-”

“Look, I only didn’t tell you about Angel beca-“

“I’m not here to talk to you about that. At least not right now, although I’m definitely going to be talking you about it later. I need to tell you about that sword.”

Buffy, who had evidently been stealing herself to have a rather awkward conversation, blinked. “The sword? This sword? Right. Okay.”

“Did you hear about the explosion at the Japanese embassy in DC a few months back?” Dawn said. She’d come up with the story on the drive down from LA. She knew full well that Buffy wouldn’t know anything about the explosion, not just because the Regents had repressed all mention of it but because Buffy wasn’t interested in such events. It was also close enough to the truth to sound plausible.

“Are we still talking about the sword? We are. I can tell, ‘cause you’re… um, no, I didn’t hear about it.”

“They were after that sword. M- Agent Bering, you met her, she recovered it and it’s been in an NSA warehouse since then until they figure out what to do with it.”

“Wait, you robbed the NSA to get me a birthday present?”

“What? No! I, um, might’ve forgotten to get you a present. Things have been really busy-“

“I knew it!”

“Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that sword is sharp. No pun intended. And before you say something inane like all swords are sharp, this sword is sharper than them. If you want something cut, this will cut it. It’s literally the sharpest sword ever made. It should make light work of, say, an immortal demon. But the thing is, the sword’s getting transferred to a different warehouse tomorrow, and I need to get it back before anyone realises that I borrowed it, so I can’t really have your friends asking questions about the insanely sharp sword you happen to have which vanished.”

Buffy digested this. “So, basically you’re saying that I should go down to factory by myself and do some slicing and dicing where no one can see me slice and dice.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Are you sure this sword is sharp as you say it is?” Buffy looked at it closely. “I don’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of vamps with no back up and just a normal sword.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Of course I'm sure. But you can test it if you like.”

It wasn’t that Buffy didn’t believe her. It was just that, when present with what was purportedly the world’s sharpest sword and then told to go and raid a factory full of vamps and possibly and immortal demon, she wanted a little reassurance that she wasn’t going to go and get herself killed. So she took a book from a nearby shelf (one with a title in English, which hopefully meant it wasn’t one Giles would miss) and tossed it into the air. She unsheathed the sword and, as the book began its descent, sliced it neatly in two. It took only marginally more effort to do that than it took to move the blade through the air. “Wow.”

~*~

“Do you know what’s pretty?” Drusilla said suddenly.

“You are, my sweet.” Spike said distractedly. He was watching the Judge as it prowled up and down. It was clearly frustrated that it wasn’t at full power yet. Because of that, vampires were trying to stay out of its way so that it wouldn’t vaporise them in a fit of pique.

“Not Sunnydale.” Drusilla suggested.

“Well, of course not. This miserable-“ Spike paused. “Hold on, love. What are you saying?”

“We are all of us but ash, but we look so ugly when we turn into it.”

“I’m not following, love. Are you telling me we should leave this good for nothing hellhole and have done with it?”

Whatever response Drusilla might have given was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who was busy cutting through vampires which offered her about as much opposition as a block of butter might give a hot knife. “Because, if you are saying that, it seems like a really good idea right about now.” Spike paused, and then added “Actually, it seemed like a good idea a few weeks ago.”

So Drusilla calmly wheeled Spike away, but not before Spike had a chance to see the Judge looking in amazement at the empty space where his arm used to be. The arm in question was flailing around on the floor, as though it was hoping to grab hold of Buffy and wreak its revenge.

~*~

“Where’s Buffy?” was the collective cry when Dawn came back alone.

“She’s gone to, uh, relieve herself. She does that, when she’s tense about something. You should have seen her in LA when she was waiting for her date to show up. Boy, she was going back and forth like a yo-yo…” Dawn realised that she was prattling and forcibly stopped herself from continuing.

“Funny. I’ve never noticed that.” Xander murmured. “Not that I keep an eye on that sort of thing, or anything, ‘cause, you know… I'm going to stop talking now.”

“So, um, who are you?” Dawn said, gesturing vaguely at the ginger next to Willow. “I mean, I know most of you by sight, and Buffy’s complained to me about Cordelia, but I don’t know you.”

“Oz.” said Oz.

“First time doing this sort of thing?”

“Yeah.”

“How’re you doing with it?”

“Not bad. Makes sense of a few things.”

“Right, right. I guess it would, at that.” 

The silence went on long enough to evolve from merely awkward to downright uncomfortable. “Are you absolutely sure that Buffy’s… you know.” Angel said eventually.

Dawn shrugged. “It’s what she said, but she isn’t back by now, so… I don’t know, maybe she could’ve gone off and tried to take out the demon herself, but that doesn’t really seem like Buffy.”

Angel didn’t say a word. He just stood up and swept out, doubtlessly to look for Buffy. The dramatic effect of this was somewhat marred by the fact that Dawn’s mobile rang just before he left, making him pause to find out who it was. Dawn picked it up. “Buffy? Everything okay?”

“Um, yeah. Would you mind bringing the gang down to the factory? I’ve got a collection of wriggling demon parts and I need some help figuring out what I should do with them.”

“You did it then? You killed it?” Dawn said, grinning.

There was a pause. “No. I got here just in time to stop it from being assembled. This sword’s no good, by the way. Without the guard I nearly cut my own thumb off. You’ll have to take it back and get me a proper birthday present.”

“Sure, whatever you want. We’ll be right there. Be careful, okay?” Dawn hung up. “She did it. She stopped them from putting it back together.” Many sighs of relief ensued. “Now she wants to go and figure out what to do with the body parts.” Many disgusted groans ensued.

~*~

“So, do we burn them?” Buffy said, looking at the various limbs of the Judge writhing around on the floor, trying to reassemble themselves. She’d already had to separate them several times.

“Wouldn’t that be a bad idea? I mean, what if the particles of ash recombined in the air, or something? Wouldn’t it be better to leave them in pieces like this, and then put then in some sort of nonrusting trunk and chuck them into the sea?” Dawn said.

“As much as I hate to say this, Buffy, but it might be a good idea to revisit our earlier plan.” Jenny said gently.

“What? Send Angel away? That’s not a plan. That’s a bad plan. There’s absolutely no planosity there at all.”

“What plan?” asked a nonplussed Dawn.

“Didn’t you hear me? There is no plan!”

“Before the vampires regained the piece of the Judge that we had, Angel was going to take it as far away from here as he could and guard it so that no one could bring the pieces together again. I see no reason to change that plan.”

“How about the fact that it’s not a plan? Besides, we have all the pieces now, and sending them all away with Angel would kind of defeat the point of sending him away in the first place. We might as well keep them here. That way we can both guard them.”

“Um, Buff?” Dawn began tentatively, knowing that her sister wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “You did already lose a piece once, and that was just one. Besides, I don’t think that Mom would be any too happy to find bits of a dismembered demon in your bedroom.”

“And the library is part of a public building, so any vampire could come in.” Jenny added. “They wouldn’t be safe there either.”

“We could bury them, or put them in concrete, or do what Dawn said and throw them into the ocean, or-“

“Buffy.” Angel said softly. “They’re right. I can keep them safe, I-I can do it better than you can, here. I can take them and scatter them. No one will ever find them.”

“But you’ll be gone.”

“For a while, yes. But I’ll be back. I’ll always come back for you.” Over Buffy’s shoulder, Dawn saw Xander roll his eyes. “You have to believe that.”

Dawn cleared her throat. “As much as this is sickeningly sweet and everything, but we should really deal with this stuff.”

“Seconded.” Xander said hurriedly.

“Right.” Buffy said, managing to tear her eyes away from Angel. “Spike and Drusilla got away, so it probably isn’t a good idea to stick around.” She didn’t say that if she kept busy, she wouldn’t be able to think about the inevitable upcoming goodbye.

~*~

They gathered the pieces. They gave Buffy and Angel a little privacy to say goodbye. When Buffy came back, she wasn’t crying, but Dawn got the distinct impression that this was only because Buffy refused to let herself. She did, however, ask Dawn if she was going to stay overnight. She said some stuff about how it was too late for her to drive back to LA, and it would be better if she stayed. Dawn didn’t buy any of that, though. She could tell that Buffy just wanted her around. And she wanted to stay, she did – it was Buffy’s birthday, and it could hardly have gone worse anyway. She needed someone around. But she couldn’t, because she needed to get the sword back, and she needed to see how Claudia was doing and if they’d managed to resolve their mission yet and if Claudia was okay.

So she said no, but that she would come over for the entire weekend. She said that she had some free time coming up, anyway. She said that they could have a proper birthday party and everything then.

And then she left.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

By the time that Dawn got back to the B&B, it was late. Very late. Late enough that any reasonable person would be in bed. Which, incidentally, was the place that she hoped to be very soon.

Therefore, she was rather surprised to see that there was someone sitting up, seemingly waiting for her. However, seeing that there was someone, she wasn’t unduly surprised to find that it was Claudia. She was back from her mission, and seemingly unharmed. Dawn felt as though a great tension, a weight that she hadn't even known she was carrying, had been lifted. “What’re you still doing up? Everything’s okay, isn’t it?”

Claudia looked up, startled. She looked like she had been rather more than half asleep. “What? Oh, yeah, everything is fine.”

“So, how’d it go?” Dawn sat opposite her friend, trying to marshal her tired brain into order so that she could ask the right questions. “Did you solve it? Course you did, you're you. So what happened?”

“Um, quite a lot of stuff.” Claudia yawned. “I thought you were going to back earlier than this, actually. I’m not really awake enough to talk about stuff. Can we take a rain check on it until the morning?”

“Oh, God yes. I'm basically asleep where I’m standing.” Dawn said. Then she looked down. “Or sitting.”

~*~

However, when Dawn actually went up to her room, she found that she couldn’t sleep, despite the fact that she felt so fatigued that getting undressed was too much effort. So she lay on her bed, trying to stop her brain running around in circles so that she could actually get to sleep.

There were two reasons that she couldn’t sleep. One of them was that she was worried about Claudia. Admittedly, Claudia had seemed fine, and if there was anything important that she had wanted to share then not even being dead tired would have stopped her. Nevertheless, Claudia had waited up for hours for her to come back, and she didn’t know why. It wouldn’t just to see if she was okay, because she hadn't been off investigating people spontaneously combusting, like Claudia had. Of course, she had actually helped stop people combusting due to a demon, but Claudia couldn’t possibly know that. So Dawn’s mind was running over every possibility it could conjure to explain why Claudia had stayed up, and was coming up blank.

The second reason, however, weighed far heavier on Dawn’s mind. Indeed, it weighed almost as heavily on her mind as it did on her back pack. The reason for this was because, during Buffy and Angel’s rather touching goodbye, Dawn had managed to steal one of the Judge’s arms, taking care not to let it throttle her, and had then put it in her bag. It had been one of the major factors in her decision not to spend the night in Sunnydale. She had planned to have it bronzed, knowing full well that only someone with access to the Warehouse would be able to reverse that, making the Judge as good as dead. However, despite being unbelievably tired and really not in the mood to sneak into the Warehouse, she couldn’t help but think that leaving the arm of an immortal demon around in a B&B filled with people unware of the existence of such things was a really, really bad idea. Especially given that it could sneak out of her bag and throttle someone while she was asleep.

So, knowing that sleep was impossible, Dawn picked up her bag and began planning the best way to sneak into the Warehouse.

~*~

Claudia was also finding it difficult to get to sleep, but for completely different reasons to Dawn. After all, she knew exactly why she had stayed up waiting for Dawn to return.

There were, however, also two reasons for her inability to sleep. The first and predominant reason was that she had almost died earlier that day. The artefact that she and Myka had been investigating had turned out to be a ladle which acted like the world’s best steroid, at the cost of making them combust. And the person who had been using it had pushed her into a massive vat of the stuff.

She should’ve died, she knew. She had certainly felt like she was going to die, as her body temperature had risen so high that delirium had overtaken her. She had felt like she was going to die, like she would fall apart and melt into the floor. And she would have, she knew, had it not been for HG Wells. Which was all manner of strange, because as far as she was aware HG was an evil person planning on breaking into the Warehouse. There had been no reason whatsoever for her to try and save Claudia. She also didn’t like the fact that Artie had yelled at her for a solid hour about not telling him that HG has shown up, despite the fact that it clearly hadn't been her fault because she had been dying at the time. And she only hadn't done because HG had been there to make some kind of formula to reverse the effects of the ladle. So, she was left with mixed feelings about HG, which confused her. Which was one of the reasons that she wanted to talk to Dawn, to see if she could straighten it all out.

The second reason was rather more abstract, and didn’t affect Claudia directly. It had more to do with Dawn. Or, more accurately, to do with her teleporter.

While Myka and Claudia had been away, Artie had suddenly developed appendicitis, and Dr Calder had been too busy dealing with another patient to help him out. There weren’t any other doctors in Univille that could deal with something like that, and the nearest hospital was too far away to drive. However, rather than heading to the vet for an emergency operation, Pete had taken Artie back to the B&B and then used the teleporter.

However, upon arriving at the hospital, Artie had been fine. Completely fine. No problems with his appendix at all. Which made no sense, because the teleporter was, well, a teleporter. It wasn’t designed to make people better. As far as Claudia knew, there was no reason that it should’ve cured Artie. It certainly hadn’t cured Dawn of her schizophrenia, when she had used it. So she had wanted to talk to Dawn in an attempt to find out why the teleporter was suddenly acting up. She knew that Dawn had had problems when Artie had suggested that she had built an artefact, so it was possible that she had modified it somehow, to see if it actually was a Hieronymus machine. If she hadn't, then Dawn would still want to know about it.

However, that could wait until tomorrow. It would have to, because Claudia certainly wasn’t going to be burdening her friend with her emotional turmoil just now, and she definitely wasn’t going to engage in a discussion about physics that went way above her head at this time of night. So it would have to wait.

Didn’t help her get to sleep though.

Neither did the sound of Dawn sneaking out.

~*~

Dawn was not good at planning. For obvious reasons, she hadn't been good at planning while she was schizophrenic, and she still wasn’t good at planning now. Still, she would have thought that, when she decided to swipe the Judge’s arm, she might have had some idea about what to do with it afterwards. She couldn’t exactly leave it in the Bronze Sector, because it quite clearly wasn’t a human arm, and Artie would definitely notice something like that hanging around.

She guessed that she would teleport it somewhere. Some deep, unexplored cave system, perhaps, or somewhere in the Amazon. No one would find it there.   
When she walked back into the B&B, it was late. Late enough that it could conceivably be called early. Early enough that it was more likely that people would be getting up now than still being up.

Which was why Dawn was surprised to see that Claudia was waiting for her. Again. Dawn couldn’t quite manage to repress the sensation of déjà vu, nor could she manage to avoid wondering if in fact she had been to the Bronze Sector at all. She might have imagined the entire thing. “Um, Claud? What are you doing still up?”

“Do you know how hard it is to get to sleep when someone is trying to sneak out past your room? Let me tell you, it’s much harder than if they just walk past you normally.” Claudia replied tiredly. “So, seeing as how you weren’t sleeping, and I co- wasn’t sleeping either, I thought I might as well get up too. Where’d you go, anyway?”

“For a walk.” Dawn lied, the now-metallic demo arm in her bag weighing heavily on her mind. “I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wait until the day started to, uh, start my day. So I went for a walk.”

“Uh huh.” Claudia nodded. It made sense to her. However, seeing as how day break wasn’t actually all that far away now, she thought she might as well start the conversation now. It wasn’t as though she was going to be getting any sleep at this point anyway. She decided to start by talking about the teleporter, because the whole business of being rescued from death by HG Wells wasn’t something that she even knew how to discuss. “By the way, Artie wanted to talk to you about your teleporter.”

“Why? It’s not a Hieronymus machine, I swear. It doesn’t need to be moved into the Warehouse, or anything. Seriously. You can even try covering it in Goo, if you like.”

“It’s not that. Um, Artie’s appendix ruptured today.”

“Oh God. Is he okay? What happened?”

“He’s fine, Dawn. Because of your machine.”

“Oh. Good. I’m glad it was helpful.”

Claudia scrubbed her fingers through her hair. “I’m not explaining this right. His appendix was doing all the things that an appendix does when it has appendicitis. Right up until the point when he and Pete used your machine to take him to a hospital. They didn’t treat him. They didn’t need to. The teleporter cured him, Dawn.”

Dawn looked puzzled. Claudia had to admit, that wasn’t the expression she had been anticipating when Dawn heard the news. She had been expecting shock, or surprise, or possibly even anger. Puzzlement hadn't made the list.

After several seconds, Dawn spoke. “Claudia? Why are you lying to me?”

Oh. Okay. This wasn’t puzzlement. This was denial. Admittedly, a strange form of denial, but denial nevertheless. “I’m not lying, Dawnie. Why would I? It really happened. Just ask Artie.”

“I don’t know why you’d lie. But you are. I built it. I know exactly what it does, and it doesn’t heal people. It just makes sure they get from one place to another. So, if you’re saying that it doesn’t do that, you must be lying.”

“Sure, Dawn, you might have built it to be a teleporter, but it clearly isn’t just that. Besides, teleporting stuff is hard. Josh tried, her thought he had it, and you know what happened to him. Compared to that, a little side effect is nothing. Especially not a good one, like this.”

Dawn put her arm on the table, palm up. “Do you know what this is?”

Claudia looked at it. It looked like an arm. She couldn’t see anything unusual about it. “Um, is it your arm?”

Dawn smiled, a twisted, bitter thing that made Claudia feel nauseous. Then she peeled back her wristband, and Claudia understood what Dawn was getting at. Because her wrist was scarred. Claudia recognised those sorts of scars, because she had seen them before. She knew exactly how someone would get those. They had been hidden behind the wristband, the one that she herself had given Dawn months ago. She couldn’t believe that Dawn had been hiding that for so long, that she hadn't seen it, that she hadn't realised what was going on. “Oh, Dawn! Why didn’t you say something?”

“Why would I? This isn’t the sort of thing that you share. You know that. But the point is, I’ve used my teleporter more than any of you. I still have these scars. I used it when I was schizophrenic, and it sure as hell didn’t do anything to fix that. So you’re lying. It doesn’t fix people. It can’t, because it didn’t.”

“Well, maybe-“

“The only reason I can think of that you would lie to me is if you wanted me to stop using my teleporter. So that I would take it apart to try and work out why it was acting that way. And the only reason that you would want that to happen was if something was coming that you didn’t want me to run away from. Well, Claud, did you bring the Abomination? Is it coming? It’s alright if you did, you know. I know how persuasive it can be. Oh yes, the promises, the relief. But it’s just a shadow, just a horrible shadow in my mind. It doesn’t talk, definitely not to you. But it would if it was real. Oh yes. I’d better hide, if it’s coming. No. I should run. I have to run, get away. No, it will follow, follow everywhere, there is no escape, not so long as I live and I will always live because I am the Key and it’s better to hide so that it doesn’t find me I can’t let it find me I don’t want to die I can’t be the Key except of course I am it is all that I have ever been…”

Claudia’s mouth opened and shut silently as Dawn continued speaking. She hadn't ever seen Dawn like this before. Previously, Dawn had always shut herself away when she was like this. But this, this had come on so fast. Claudia didn’t know what to do. She didn’t even know what she could do. Dawn didn’t even seem to know that Claudia was there. “Um, Dawn-“

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP NOW!” Dawn roared. Claudia instinctively reared back, her chair toppling backwards. She barely managed to extricate herself in time to avoid going down too. “You brought it here, the shadow, you brought it with your lies, why would you do that, why are you after me, what did I do, nothing, I did nothing, you’re just out to get me, you and it, the Abomination. Get out, get out, I need to hide, it’s coming, help me, it’s coming, I can’t take this, not again… I have to run!”

And she did. She did run. She ran right to her room and slammed the door, the sound reverberating throughout the building. Claudia, after a few seconds, managed to marshal her thought enough to make her legs follow her friend up, even though they felt like jelly that would much rather buckle on the floor right then and there.

By the time that she got there, Dawn had already gone, had already used the teleporter.

~*~

Dawn was in Sunnydale. She hadn't even contemplated going anywhere else. Truthfully, there wasn’t even anywhere else that she could go. Besides, Buffy was here, and she could keep her safe. Dawn frowned. That thought seemed wrong, somehow. There wasn’t anything to keep her safe from. She was alone here.

This led Dawn to realise two things. Firstly, that her teleporter did in fact heal people in some capacity, because she had been in the middle of a schizophrenic attack when she had teleported, and now she wasn’t it. It was completely over.

The second realisation was that she had just had a schizophrenic attack. Her first, since the quill had been neutralised. The thought made her feel sick.

A phone rang. It took Dawn several seconds to realise that it was hers. Despite feeling as though there was nothing in the world that she would rather do less at that moment than talk to her family, she nevertheless picked up the phone. “Hi.” Her voice sounded raspy and her throat was sore.

“Dawn?” Joyce said. “Um, can you come back to Sunnydale? It’s about Buffy… she’s, uh, she’s sick. She was fine yesterday, but now she’s delirious and she has a fever and… Dawnie, she’s talking about vampires and demons…”

Dawn heard the unspoken fear in her mother’s voice. She didn’t want Buffy to end up like her sister. “Yes. I’ll be right there. Hold on. I’ll be at the house in a couple of minutes.”

~*~

Claudia brushed aside everyone’s offers to talk. She didn’t want to talk to them. They didn’t really want to talk to her, either, she could tell. So, instead, she calmly said that she was going to go and have a walk. She was surprised, actually, by how calm her voice was.

And she did take a walk. She took a walk right to Warehouse, and then to the Dark Vault, stopping only when she came to a certain full-length mirror.

“Hello.” Alice said. “What are you doing he-“

Abruptly, the scene reflected in the mirror scrolled sideways, taking Alice with it. Claudia found it mildly creepy to be looking into a mirror and see herself reflected, but nothing else. “Well, I know I said I’d come and talk, so, um… here I am. It’s kind of complicated…”


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Dawn was a perfectionist. She always had been. It was why she had worked hard to ace all her classes, even though she was a pure scientist at heart. It was why she had made her teleporter herself, even though Claudia could probably have made in a fraction of the time. It was why she preferred Newtonian physics to quantum. It was why she would rather be trying to figure out why her teleporter was working oddly.

A hospital was no place for a perfectionist. It was a place for people to go when they went wrong. Sometimes they wouldn’t come out again. Sometimes they'd be in and out like a yo-yo. Sometimes doctors got their diagnosis wrong. Hospitals had far too much room for error for her liking. Not to mention the fact that she had spent some months in a different sort of hospital, and that hadn’t really been the best of experiences for her. But Buffy was ill, so Dawn didn’t really have much of a choice.

Joyce stood up from Buffy’s bedside and moved to hug Dawn when she came in. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Is she okay?” Dawn said, voice quivering a little. She didn’t just have an abstract dislike of hospitals. She remembered when her cousin, Celia, had died in one. “She’s going to be okay, right?”

“The doctors said she has some kind of ‘flu. Apparently a few other people, kids, have had it. They think there might be an epidemic.”

Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought that the illness had something to do with her lending Buffy the sword to take out the Judge. After all, who could tell how someone would react to using an artefact to dismember an immortal demon? But ‘flu, well, ‘flu was normal, and Buffy was the Slayer. She’d be back on her feet in no time, no doubt about it.

“The things she was saying, though.” Joyce said, looking down at her sleeping daughter. “She kept talking about how she had fight vampires. They had to sedate her to stop her from leaving to… oh, God.”

“It’s just a fever, Mom.” Dawn said miserably. “It’s not, uh, it’s just the fever talking.”

“I’m sorry, Dawnie, I shouldn’t… I know you’re better now, I just… I can't believe this is happening. She hardly ever gets sick, and then this just comes out of nowhere. I mean, she was fine yesterday. It was her birthday.”

Dawn wasn’t good at comforting. In fact, after having had her first schizophrenic attack in ages just a sort while earlier, she felt that if anyone should be comforted, it might as well be her. But she wasn’t going to burden her mother with that, not now. So instead, she just put her hand on Joyce’s shoulder. “She’s going to be fine, Mom. Don’t worry. She’s Buffy. No virus is going to get her down.”

Joyce took a breath. “I know. I just hate hospitals, you know? Always have.”

“I don’t think anyone likes hospitals, Mom. Not even doctors.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Listen, I'm glad you could come. It means a lot, and Buffy will be glad to see you. She misses you, you know.”

Dawn, who really, really didn’t feel up to getting into a mawkish conversation just then, asked “Have you told her friends?”

“I didn’t even think of that. I-I should do that now. They’ll be worried.” Joyce said. “I’ll go do that.”

“Okay. I’ll stay here, keep an eye on her.” Dawn promised.

“Thank you.”

Dawn sat down next to Buffy. She’d forgotten how uncomfortable these sorts of chairs could be. Dawn found herself thinking back on all the chairs she’d sat on, absently trying to remember which one had been the most comfortable. She was, she knew, avoiding the issue at hand. She could fix Buffy, make her well again. Or her teleporter could, at least. Of course, that would reveal all sorts of things to Buffy, which she had promised she wouldn’t, and Buffy would probably get better by herself, but… she really hated hospitals. It seemed like the entire sterile structure was made to help people think the worst.

“Hey.” A voice said, thankfully disturbing Dawn’s train of thought. “I thought you’d gone back to work.”

Dawn looked up, and smiled. “I couldn’t stay away. How’re you feeling?”

Buffy sighed. “Hot. Really hot. But my arms are cold. And I’m tired.”

“You should be asleep, you know. They sedated you.”

“Oh, you know. I’m the Slayer. Nothing’s going to keep me down.” Then Buffy frowned. “I told Mom about vampires, hunting vampires. I was kind of out of it.”

“Don’t worry. She thinks it was just a fever dream.”

“Damn, but I hate being sick.” Buffy grumbled. “I feel like I should be out there doing stuff.”

“Shame vampires don’t get ill. Otherwise you could go around coughing on them.”

“Hilarious. Really. Right now I don’t even feel like I could even do that, let alone slay one.” Buffy said. “I can’t even remember the last time I felt this sick. You know, at home I woke in the night, drenched in sweat, and I could’ve sworn I saw Death standing in my doorway. Some weird skeletal guy in hat, anyway. Weird tusks.”

“Wow. You must’ve really been out of it.”

“Yeah.” Buffy suddenly realised that she was talking about hallucinating to someone who had suffered from delusions for more than a year, and decided to shut up. Dawn noticed the change, and realised what had caused it even though her own predicament hadn’t exactly been uppermost in her mind at the time. “Where’s Mom?”

“She went to call your friends.”

“Oh, cool.” They sat in awkward silence for a bit, until Joyce came back and asked the same questions Dawn had. Buffy didn’t mention the thing she’d seen. A bit later an orderly came in and said that visiting time was over, but that they could come back later.

~*~

Claudia didn’t really feel all that much better after talking to the mirror. It wasn’t as though it talked back. She did feel calmer, though. Talking aloud had helped her get her thoughts in order.

She knew that, no matter how much Artie yelled at her, there was nothing that she could do about HG and her supposed desire to work for the Warehouse again. Nor could she do anything about Dawn’s schizophrenia. She knew Dawn well enough that she would come back when she was ready, and Claudia wasn’t going to try and force the issue before Dawn was ready to deal with it.

There was something that Claudia could do, however.

Claudia was a talented engineer, which was odd, because she hadn’t had any sort of formal training. She was just as good as making things as her brother, and she was certainly better at it than Dawn. Dawn might be a brilliant physicist and mathematician, but she got a headache just using a computer. Actually making a teleporter would have been incredibly difficult for her, and Dawn had made several. Even Josh had had difficulty with it, although he suspected that that was because the teleporter was an artefact.

Claudia wasn’t a good enough mathematician to puzzle her way through Dawn’s equations, but she didn’t think they were a problem. If Joshua hadn’t spotted any errors, Claudia felt pretty certain that they weren’t there. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t an error in the machine itself. Claudia had looked at Dawn’s schematic, and looked like it made sense, but then Claudia wasn’t really a theoretical type of girl. She thought, if there was a problem with the machine, then she was only going to find it if she took the machine apart and put it back together again.

Claudia strongly suspected that Dawn wouldn’t be pleased about that. She knew how hard her friend had worked on it, and it would gall her no end to find that it was working in an unusual way just because she had put it together a little wrong. On the other hand, Dawn would be glad to know that the problem was solved, or at least figured out, so she was going to do this.

~*~

As Joyce and Dawn left the hospital, Dawn was taken by surprise when Joyce asked “How are you doing. At work, I mean. I know you can’t tell me the details, but… are you okay?”

She shouldn’t have been, she knew. It was an ordinary question. But Joyce had never come to visit her, while she was in the hospital at LA. She had called her when Dawn had supposedly started working at the NSA, but it had seemed kind of perfunctory, like she was just checking in, before handing the phone over to Buffy. She understood that the whole situation was incredibly difficult for Joyce, so she understood why Joyce had been distant. Hence the surprise.

“I'm good. The work is challenging, which is nice. The people are cool. I mean, it’s not like high school. We actually get on well. It’s nice.”

“Good. Um. That’s good.” Joyce said, looking down at her feet. “It’s not just Buffy who misses you, you know.”

“I… oh, wow.” Dawn absently started chewing on a strand of hair. “Look, can we… can we not do this? I-I can’t deal with this.”

“Fine. Okay. Yeah.” Joyce seemed somewhat relieved by that. “I just wanted to say, when I get scared by things, I, um, kind of shut them out. And I'm, I'm sorry I did that to you. I, uh, I know I should’ve been there. For you, when, uh, you-“

“Look, Mom, I get it. I do the same thing. I did the same thing, and I was the one scaring myself. I totally get wanting to run away from things. I don’t… I get it, okay? It’s not a problem. And, and everything’s okay now, so we can, uh, you know, not shut things out together, or something, I don’t know. Um, that kind of got away from me a little.”

Joyce laughed. “It sounded fine to me.”

~*~

Claudia felt as though she was getting in over her head. This wasn’t really all that unusual for her, but this was the first time that she had felt like this in regard to a machine. Normally, she understood them, could see how they worked. But the teleporter was complicated, and she didn’t even really understand the basic principles that it ran on, let alone how all the pieces fit together to make a whole. There was a whole load of disparate parts here, and she didn’t get how they fit together or how the end result made a teleporter. If Claudia didn’t know better, she would have thought that it was just a pile of things thrown together by someone who didn’t really know what they were doing. Except Claudia did know better, and she had seen it work. She’d used it. It didn’t make sense.

But, then again, Claudia was used to things not making sense. If she gave up every time she saw something that didn’t make sense, she wouldn’t ever get anything done. So she was going to stick with this. She was going to work it out.

~*~

The thing about human bodies is that they have optimal conditions under which they work. Alter these conditions, and all sorts of things can go wrong. Some of these changes are only poorly understood. No one is certain, for example, what it is that makes people schizophrenic. But other changes are well known. For example, if there is a sudden spike in body temperature, a human won’t react well. Even if said human is a Slayer.

The spike itself wasn’t high, but then Buffy’s temperature was already above average. Increasing body temperature can cause several things. Hallucinations, for one.

It wouldn’t have helped Buffy to know that the figure she saw in her doorway wasn’t a hallucination, though.


	20. Chapter Twenty

For Dawn, there were two main reasons why she didn’t sleep much. The first was that one of the side effects of her medication had made her insomniac, but she hadn't taken anything like that for weeks, and besides, it seemed as though either Poe’s pen or her teleporter had sorted out any side effects that she might be suffering. So the actual act of getting to sleep wasn’t really an issue for her, these days.

The second reason was her dreams. They weren’t nightmares, exactly. When she was having them, they seemed perfectly normal. In fact, they were exactly as normal as reviewing a memory, which was what they felt like while she was having them. The thing was that humans generally didn’t have memories of being balls energy worshipped by monks in dozens of different languages in dozens of different countries. Stuff like that gave a girl a tenuous grip on reality. But then, the only symptom of her schizophrenia that Dawn had had was the outburst she had had earlier that day. The dreams, which had been what had first triggered her doubts about her own existence, hadn't started up again.

Nevertheless, when Dawn came back to the hospital to visit Buffy, only to find her sister sleeping, Dawn had no intention of joining her. But sitting in a chair, no matter how uncomfortable, with nothing to do but wait for someone to wake up wasn’t really the most engaging of activities. Dawn, who hadn’t really slept much in the last 24 hours in any case, found the temptation to close her eyes just for a little bit, no really, she wasn’t going to go sleep, she was just resting, to be too tempting.

The dream started almost immediately.

She’d had this one once before. It had been the one that had first led her to realise that she was (might be) the Key. The one in which the Abomination was coming, and she – the Key was being sent to the Slayer. Last time, though, she had woken up before they had actually done that, and Dawn had never been entirely sure why the Abomination was looking for her. She didn’t know what it would do to her if it found her, either, which she had to admit was a large part of what made it so terrifying.

This time, she didn’t wake up. She sat there, dreaming, or remembering. She dreamt that there was a monk in front of her, chanting, beginning the spell that would send her to the Slayer. Beyond him, two other monks were waiting for the point when they had to join in the spell.

“She will be here in any minute.” The younger of the two monks said nervously. “We may not have enough time to-“

“We have enough time. Our comrades can buy us that much.” The older monk said calmly. It was the sort of calmness you got when you knew you were going to die, but you also knew that it was for a good cause.

Evidently, the other one hadn't gotten to that point yet. “If the Beast gets here early, we will all die, everyone will die, and it will be for nothing. Our universe will end.”

“We have enough time. We will thwart the Abomination until our dying breath.”

The younger monk looked resigned to this, but he was somewhat bothered about the fact that their dying might not accomplish anything.

“It’s time.” The older monk said, and the pair went to complete the spell.

~*~

“It’s time to wake up, Dawn.” 

Dawn became aware that someone was poking her arm repeatedly. Slowly, she arose from the depths of sleep like a Leviathan stirring from the bottom of the ocean, and said irritably “Stop that, Buffy. I’m awake.”

“Finally. I’ve been prodding you for the last minute.” Buffy replied.

Dawn looked at her sister, and absolutely did not think about the dream that she had just had, because if she did she would doubtlessly have a panic attack and never, ever calm down. Buffy looked flushed, but her eyes were clear and she generally looked better than she had earlier. Dawn guessed that her Slayer resilience was finally kicking in.

“So, anyway.” Buffy said, looking away. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“That sounds ominous.” Dawn said in the closest to a cheery voice that she could manage. Not only did nothing good ever come from a sentence like that, but she couldn’t help but think that Buffy had spontaneously developed mind reading powers and had plucked her dream from her head – which she wasn’t going to think about just now.

“It’s not. Well, slightly. It’s like a mini-ominous thing. Sub-ominous?” Buffy obviously didn’t want to breach the subject. She sighed. “Anyway, you know that a lot of weird stuff happens on the Hellmouth, right?”

Dawn wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question or not, but given that she’d recently helped Buffy fight off an immortal demon bent on killing every human on the face of the planet she was well aware that things happened in Sunnydale that generally didn’t happen elsewhere. At least, not where there was no artefact involved. So she just nodded, and hoped Buffy would get on with it.

“Well, um, earlier, I saw – uh, I was feeling kind of feverish, and I saw this figure in the doorway, the same tusked Death guy that I saw before, and then I blinked, and he wasn’t there. I swear, it wasn’t a trick of the light or anything, and I'm not that far out of it.”

Dawn waited patiently for Buffy to get to the point, and hoped like hell that the point wasn’t that Buffy was going to ask if she was developing schizophrenia too, because if she was then she was going to leave and probably teleport away to some far off place and never contact anyone again, ever. Things were too difficult without having a sister like she was.

“So, I'm thinking, what if it wasn’t a hallucination? I mean, this is Sunnydale. If anywhere has some creepy demon thing that appears and disappears and only ill people seem to see, it would be here, right?”

Oh. That was a lot better than Dawn had been expecting. She found herself pleasantly surprised. “Yeah, sure. That sounds reasonable. I mean, not reasonable, but about as reasonable as a non-reasonable thing in a place that isn’t reasonable can reasonably be.”

“Okay.” Buffy flashed her a smile. “Well, as long as it seems reasonable, would you mind asking Giles to look it up?”

“Why can’t you ask him yourself? Isn’t he and the rest of your gang coming to see you?”

“Willow and Xan popped by, but apparently there’s a werewolf around and they’re trying to figure out who it is. And, you know, not hang around the sick girl and get all ‘flu-y themselves, of course.”

“Of course.” Dawn cleared her throat. “Speaking of hanging around sick girls…”

Buffy’s face twisted. “You want to leave.”

“It’s not so much that I want to leave so much as I kind of have to. I mean, the government isn’t particularly forgiving of their employees bunking off to see their sister just because she has ‘flu.” Plus, she had kind of run away, and she’d yelled at Claudia, and she really needed to arrange an appointment to see Dr Green, and she wanted to find out what was up with her teleporter, and she didn’t want to but really kind of had to find out everything she could about things called the Key that could end the universe and happened to be chased by something that was called either the Abomination or the Beast. “Sorry. I’d stay if I could.”

~*~

Dawn said goodbye to Buffy and Joyce, and stopped by the library to tell Giles about Buffy’s mysterious tusked figure. He seemed thoroughly nonplussed by the whole thing, but agreed to research it. And then Dawn took a bus to LA, where she tried to sit as far away from everyone else as she possibly could and not think about anything at all, in the slightest.

Before she teleported back to Univille, though, she had an appointment to make.

“Um, hi.” Dawn said to the receptionist. “Can I book an appointment to see Dr Greene, please?”

“I’m sorry, he doesn’t work here anymore. He took a job up in New York. Would you like me to book an appointment with someone else?”

Well, Dawn could go to New York. With her teleporter, all places were nearby. But, then again, if she followed Greene wherever she went then he might be a bit suspicious. “Yeah, sure. That would be great. When’s the next available space?”

“Hold on a second, let me see… tomorrow afternoon. 3 o’clock with Dr Stirling.”

“Great. That sounds great. I’ll be here.”

~*~

Dawn wasn’t entirely sure what she would find when she arrived back at the B&B. She rather suspected that everyone would start hovering around her anxiously and not really know what to say to her.

She didn’t expect to arrive in her room and find someone already in there. Nor did she expect to see her teleporter lying in pieces.

Claudia scrambled upwards when she heard Dawn arrive, but in her haste she tripped over some wire. She would’ve fallen, if Dawn hadn’t instinctively reached out to steady her. “Claud, what are you doing?”

Once Claudia was standing upright and unsupported, she said “Well, uh, you seemed kind of… so I… I wanted to see what your teleporter was doing that made it not do, you know, what you made it to do. And, um, seeing as how I kind of, like, tinker with things I thought if I took it apart then I could fix it and tell you what the problem with it was. But then you came back and I… hadn't quite gotten that far.”

Dawn digested this. “Okay. Cool. Sorry about yelling at you earlier. Got an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow, so if you don’t mind, could you put it back together again by then, that would be great.”

Now it was Claudia’s turn to have her expectations not match up to reality. “You’re not… you're not mad?”

“No. It’s a good idea.” Dawn sounded like she genuinely thought that it was, rather than she just didn’t want to make a big deal of it because of the way she had acted earlier.

“Okay…” Claudia said slowly. “In that case, would you mind if I asked you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“What does all this stuff do? I mean, this Van de Graaff generator doesn’t seem to do anything at all, and the way you’ve placed resistors should mean that most of the circuits don’t have any current flowing in them, and – basically, it looks like this thing shouldn’t even turn on, let alone work. So could you tell me what this stuff is all for? Because, looking at it, I'm not surprised that Josh couldn’t build it, because most of it doesn’t even make sense.”

Dawn looked at the heaps of parts strewn across the room, and at her friend who was looking at her earnestly, and briefly at her own shoes. “I don’t have time for this just now. Sorry, but I don’t. Look, I’ll put it back together, and we’ll talk about it some more after I’ve had my appointment tomorrow, okay? Right now, all of this isn’t exactly top priority, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. Of course. Sure thing.” Claudia nodded. Then she paused. “Actually, one more thing.”

“Okay.” Dawn said patiently. “What is it?”

“Would you mind if I talked to you a little bit about the mission I went on?”

“Yes. I mean, no, I wouldn’t mind.” Dawn said, thinking that listening to someone else’s problems would be just the thing right then, because then she wouldn’t have to think about her own.

~*~

So they talked about Claudia’s brush with death and being saved by HG Wells. Dawn suggested that being absolutely terrified was probably a good trait in a field operative, because it meant that Claudia wouldn’t take stupid risks and get herself killed that way. She had nothing to offer on the HG front, though. She thought that all they could do was wait and see how the situation turned out.

Then they went downstairs, and Dawng to go sleep, she was just re feeling much better now (she didn’t mention that the teleporter had helped) and that she had an appointment with a doctor the following day and she would probably start taking medication again until she could use the quill again.

~*~

“Hello, Ms. Summers.” Dr Stirling said, shaking Dawn’s hand.

“Uh, just Dawn.” Dawn said, feeling somewhat nervous. And also a little surprised, because she hadn’t expected Stirling to be a woman. Given her history, it was rather a silly thing to be surprised by, but after having seen Greene on and off for more than a year it was surprising to go from him to pretty brunette.

“Of course. I’ve read your file, Dawn, and I must say that it was very interesting.”

“Um, that’s nice.” Dawn said stupidly, and then felt like kicking herself.

“I’ve seen very few cases that have been as resistant as yours. I see that Dr Greene prescribed you with several different treatments.”

It hadn’t been a question, but Dawn nodded anyway. While Greene had been fairly relaxed, this woman seemed much more formal. Plus, of course, she didn’t know her. Maybe she just seemed mildly scary at a first meeting.

And then Stirling smiled, and it was a warm, pleasant smile, and Dawn instantly felt more at ease. “Well, Dawn, I have some good news for you. I think you’ve been misdiagnosed.”


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

It wasn’t unusual for Dawn to question what she was hearing. It was, however, uncommon for her to question what someone had said when they actually existed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had done that.

Still, even though she knew that she had heard Stirling correctly, Dawn still felt the need to say “What?”

“I think you’ve been misdiagnosed.” Stirling said gently.

“No I haven’t.” Dawn said, her mouth seeming to operate on autopilot. “I think I'm some kind of ball of energy that’s existed for thousands of years, and I'm being chased by some nebulous shadowy thing, and I hallucinate. I’ve been like that for more than a year. Now you’re saying that Greene messed up and there’s something else wrong with me? Do I have some kind of strange brain tumour, or something?”

“It’s quite common for mental disorders to be misdiagnosed, sadly. There was a study which indicated that 69 percent of patients with bipolar disorder are misdiagnosed at first. About a third of them took ten years to be correctly diagnosed. We still understand so little-“

“Wait, what? You think I'm bipolar?”

Stirling nodded. “I do.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Dawn said, waving a hand as though she could brush away all this new information.”

Stirling sat back in her chair. Dawn got the strong impression that now would be a perfect opportunity for the doctor to steeple her fingers. She seemed like that sort of a person. “Why not?”

“I mean, look at the world! On a quantum level, everything is schizophrenic. Stuff is either a wave or a particle, but not both, not at the same time. We can know where something is, but not its momentum, or vice versa. I think I'm both the Key and an average human girl, but those are incompatible ideas so I can’t hold onto them at once. Usually, I don’t believe I'm the Key because, well, it’s insane, but sometimes, when the Abomination comes, then-“ Dawn stopped talking. She thought that she had made her point well enough. She didn’t want to go into what she felt when the Abomination was around, not now.

“You also have low periods, where you feel that everything is hopeless, that there’s no point going on. You sleep poorly. From your records, I can see that there were times when you refused to leave your room, and if you did it wasn’t uncommon for you to act sluggishly and have difficulty concentrating.”

Dawn digested this. “You do know that I was pumped full of drugs, right? I know for a fact that insomnia is a common side effect. And if you haven’t slept much, it’s not really unusual to be a bit slow.”

“Then there’s your periods of intense activity, when you would work with Ms Donovan for hours, often ignoring your meals. In your group therapy sessions when you were like that, your thoughts tended to… well, they were loosely tangential at best.”

“Disordered thoughts is a symptom of schizophrenia.”

Stirling nodded. “It is. It’s also a symptom of bipolar disorder. The manic phase, to be precise.”

“Right. So that doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“Oh, no. That’s not true.” Stirling replied. “You haven’t been taking any medication recently, is that correct?”

“Uh, yes.” Dawn thought furiously. Explaining that she hadn't been keeping up with her medication because she had temporarily been cured by either a teleporter or by a quasi-magical quill owned by Edgar Allan Poe probably wouldn’t be the best move just then. “I was doing really well with the Clozaril, I guess I just got careless and missed a few treatments. That’s kind of why I'm here.”

“I have treated schizophrenic patients before, Dawn. None of them could’ve communicated with me so eloquently nor as expressively as you just have. It’s one of the negative symptoms. And you haven’t been taking your medication recently, and even then, negative symptoms are generally resistant to treatment. People with bipolar disorder, though, don’t suffer from poverty of speech or flat expressions. Indeed, quite often it’s just the opposite.”

“Yeah, but…” Dawn trailed off, unable to argue with that. “But I hallucinate! All this mood swing stuff aside, I still see the Abomination and have these creepy dreams.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Stirling admitted. “It was seeing your record of that, when I went through your file, which made me first think that you might have been misdiagnosed.”

Okay. Dawn now felt thoroughly lost. The feeling had been steadily sneaking up on her since the conversation had started, but that had thrown her. Hallucination had been one the cornerstones of her diagnosis. Even Pete, who had thought that people with schizophrenia meant that she had multiple personalities had known that people with schizophrenia hallucinated. And now it was apparently that which made her not schizophrenic? “Okay, you’ve lost me now.”

“You may not know this, but it’s not uncommon for patients with Bipolar I to hallucinate. In fact, it’s estimated that between 20 to 50 percent of patients have them during a manic episode. Your hallucinations do follow the trend of your mood – I understand that your thoughts are chaotic and jumbled, and it is then that you truly believe that you are… the Key. Delusions of grandeur are common in such states.”

Dawn nodded mutely. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even think that there was anything that she could say. This didn’t make sense. She couldn’t be bipolar – she’d thought she was schizophrenic before she had even gone to see Greene, and he had only confirmed it. Everyone, all the other psychologists who worked on the ward, had confirmed it. She had to be schizophrenic.

Eventually, Dawn said “But the… one of the negative symptoms is, is not wanting to form attachments and, and I only have two and one of them is my sister. I don’t really, um, have friends. Never really wanted friends, either.”

Stirling’s face was, as it had been throughout this conversation, carefully composed and calm. But her eyes were sad. Not pity, Dawn thought, which she was grateful for, but just sadness. She wondered why. “Dawn, I have read through all of your files. I know that neither of your parents were particularly… available to you. Not in the same way that they were for your sister. And your classmates throughout school teased you because you were smarter than them. It’s hardly surprising that you have don’t want to form attachments – your history with people has hardly been what you would like. But I know that you formed a close friendship with Ms Donovan, and that you left here after she tried to hang herself. Did you keep in contact with her?”

Dawn nodded. She hoped that Stirling wouldn’t ask in what capacity. Saying that they broke into a Warehouse full of madcap and abducted an ex-NSA agent wouldn’t really go down well, and Dawn didn’t really think that she would be able to come up with anything even approaching a coherent lie right then. Her brain was much too scrambled.

“You see, Dawn, a patient with schizophrenia wouldn’t do that. Not only would they not want to, but it wouldn’t even have occurred to them.”

“So, you think that Dr Greene was wrong? That, for all the time I was here, all the times I came back for appointments, that he was wrong? How? I mean, what you’ve just said sounds really… um, persuasive, and I don’t know how to argue with it. But I believed Greene, too, when he explained all of this to me. How do I know that you're right? I mean, really, what if he’s right and you’re wrong?”

“Dawn, we’re just doctors in a field that is poorly understood. We aren’t perfect. So, yes, I could be wrong. I don’t think I am, but I have to bear the possibility in mind. You're welcome to seek a second opinion. But I have thought this through. Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can often be confused with each other, and they share common treatments – particularly the antipsychotics you’ve been taking. I understand that you did well with Cloazril? – but there are different treatments available for bipolar disorder. Antipsychotics would work to help with your manic phases, but you haven’t been treated for your depressive episodes.”

Dawn sat there, wondering if she should be feeling hopeful right now. This seemed to be opening up a whole new avenue of treatment, one which didn’t rely on artefacts that may or may not have done what she thought they did. What Stirling was saying made sense, and Dawn instinctively felt that bipolar disorder wasn’t quite as bad as schizophrenia. But if she’d been misdiagnosed for more than a year, and such things were common, then why should she feel hopeful about this? It could be another dead end. Everything Dawn had been through so far had been.

But, then again, this might not be. And it wasn’t as though Dawn had any other options, or something else to cling to. Whatever was wrong with her was coming back, and she wanted it gone. This might work. And it was certainly more proactive than waiting around to get in the right mood for Poe’s quill to work.

“So I’m bipolar.”

Stirling realised that Dawn was talking to herself, trying to wrap her head around all this new information that she had suddenly been given, but she replied anyway. “Yes. Ultra-rapid cycling Bipolar I, I think.” 

~*~

The rest of the appointment was spent outlining what Dawn could expect, if she was bipolar, and the treatments available to her. Dawn was still resolved to get a second opinion, although the only other psychiatrist she was familiar with was Greene, and for obvious reasons going to him wouldn’t be appropriate. Still, she could probably dig one up easily enough, or Claudia could use her almost magical internet skills.

Or maybe there was one affiliated with the Warehouse. Dawn didn’t know why that hadn’t occurred to her before. She supposed that, until recently, she hadn’t even known that the Warehouse had a doctor. Since she had found out about Dr Calder, Dawn hadn’t needed to see a specialist. She wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere in the Warehouse’s vast and shady hierarchy, some kind of psychiatrist figured. Although it did beg the question why no one had seen Dawn before.

Still, she would do well to find out. To that end, Dawn got out her Farnsworth and called Claudia. Claudia picked up instantly, and Dawn couldn’t help but think that her friend must have been waiting for her call. She didn’t know how she felt about that. “Hey, Dawn. How’d it go?”

“Well, it was certainly interesting.” Dawn said, suddenly not willing to broach the issue with Claudia before she was sure herself that there was something worth talking about. “Gave me a lot to think about.”

“Good or bad?” Claudia said guardedly.

Dawn shrugged. “Honestly? Not sure yet. On a slightly related subject, do you know how to contact Dr Calder?”

Claudia frowned. “No, but I bet Artie does. Why? Is your sister okay? Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Of course. I just… there’s just something I want to, um, talk about.”

“Right.” Claudia said, a little doubtfully. She wondered what Dawn could possibly want with a medical doctor, if she wasn’t ill. “I’ll ask Artie, see what he says.”

“Thank you. Anyway, I'm not going to be back for a while. At the Warehouse, I mean. I’m going down to Sunnydale for a bit. Got some… stuff that I want to think about.”

“Right.” Claudia said again. “Won’t your folks wonder why you’re back so soon? I mean, they do think that you work for the NSA, and the government’s not exactly known for being generous with their holiday time.”

Dawn shrugged. “Oh, I can always talk about compassionate leave or something. The doctors there did seem to think there might be an epidemic in the works. Anyway, they won’t look too hard. I'm family, and it’s always nice to be around family.”

“Okay. I’ll get on that Dr Calder thing. See you when you get back.” Claudia closed her Farnsworth before Dawn had a chance to reply.

Claudia had no family. Oh, she had a brother, but he lived half a world away and she barely saw him. Besides, he’d been stuck in limbo for the past dozen years, so they didn’t really have all that much in common anyway. The closest she had was the people at the Warehouse. Pete was her kooky pseudo-brother who acted like he was younger than she was, Myka was her business-like older sister, Leena was the unbelievably maternal mother and Artie was the unbelievably grumpy dad. And Dawn, of course, who was much, much closer to her than all the rest combined. Dawn hadn’t meant to rub it in, that she had a family and Claudia didn’t. Maybe Claudia was just being overly sensitive. Just because Dawn was spending time with her, with her biological family didn’t mean that the surrogate one that Claudia had built around herself was going to fall apart.

No, of course it didn’t. Dawn would come back. She always did.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Buffy was awake, when Dawn walked into the hospital room. She was talking to Giles and her friends, although they stopped when Dawn came in – presumably they were talking about demons or something and they had thought that she was a doctor or Joyce. Buffy looked a lot better, she was glad to see.

“Hey. What’s up?” Dawn asked, when the silence went on just slightly too long.

Buffy sighed. She looked ready to get out of bed. More than ready. She looked like she was perfectly capable of going and Slaying whatever creepy demon was sneaking around the hospital. “Nothing much. Giles was just telling me that he thinks the demon is something called… help me out here Giles, what did you say it was called?”

“Der Kindestod.” Giles said in a tone of voice that said that he wasn’t particularly happy that Dawn was being filled in on all of this. Dawn didn’t know why that would be, given that Willow and Xander evidently knew all about it.

“The Child Death?” Dawn translated automatically. “That sounds bad.”

Xander snorted. “Yeah, you can say that again.”

“You speak German?” Giles said with some surprise.

“Yup. What can I say, I’m a regular polyglot.” Dawn said, hoping not to be roped into a discussion about that just then. “So what’s happening with… yeah, I’m so not calling it Child Death.”

Buffy smiled slightly. “Apparently only sick children can see it. It sits on them and sucks the life out of them. It ends up looking like they died of a fever.”

Right. Okay. So this was going to come down to fighting something that they couldn’t see. Yeah, that wasn’t poignant at all. “So what are you going to do, then? I mean, look at you. You’re clearly not ill anymore. I doubt you’ll be able to even see it.”

Buffy shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t worked that part out yet.”

~*~

Dawn, who didn’t really feel like sitting around and talking about how to make her sister ill again, left to go and find Joyce. As she went, she was composing a story about why she was here rather than at work. She was sure that the fact that there seemed to be an epidemic brewing down here could be slotted in somehow.

This flew out of her head when she saw a familiar face in front of her. “Hello, Dawn. I hear you wanted to see me?”

Dawn had met Dr Calder precisely twice. The first time she’d been dying from an overdose, and she hadn’t really been in much of a position to notice what Calder was doing, let alone what she looked like. But the second time, after Calder had brought Leena back from Switzerland, she’d been in more of a position to actually look at the Warehouse doctor. As a result, she was sure that the person in front of her was most definitely Calder. Given that it hadn’t been all that long ago that she had even asked Claudia if she could meet with Calder, and she really doubted that she actually worked at Sunnydale General, she had no idea how she had gotten here so fast. It was a Regent thing, she guessed. Still, Dawn couldn’t be faulted for being surprised at her sudden appearance.

A couple of seconds later, after Dawn had managed to marshal her thoughts a little, she managed to say “Um, yeah. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

Calder waited patiently for Dawn to ask them.

“Um, so you’re just a medical doctor, right? You don’t do… brain stuff?”

“That’s right. Why? Are you feeling okay?” Calder asked. Dawn wondered how much she knew about her situation.

“Well, see, the thing is – earlier I had an appointment with a psychiatrist, and she said some things that were… kind of hard to deal with, and I was wondering if there was a chance of second opinion. But you don’t do that kind of thing, so I was wondering if there wasn’t some other Regent or something who, you know, does.”

“There isn’t.” Calder said simply. “We don’t often have to deal with… cases like yours. We do have someone who specialises in trauma and grief counselling, but that’s a completely different field. But if you want a second opinion, or even a third or fourth, then we can easily arrange that. We could get you access to the best in the field, if you want.”

When Dawn had asked Claudia if she could arrange this, that was exactly what she had been hoping for. She may or may not have been misdiagnosed for more than a year, and who knew what kind of damage that could have done had it not been for the reset button that had come either in the form of a quill or a teleporter. She definitely didn’t want to go through something like that again, not if she could avoid it. 

But now, with Dawn actually able to make that a reality, she wasn’t sure if she could actually go through all of that again. She remembered going to see Greene, already sure that she was schizophrenic, and then waiting until he had finished diagnosing her and then had run tests which hadn’t found a single thing to confirm or refute the diagnosis. She didn’t want to go through all of that again. She had found it hard enough the first time round. Going through all of that again, with multiple doctors… she didn’t know if she could do it. The strain of waiting, not knowing – she had never been good at that. It had almost killed her when Artie had been deliberating about whether she could stay at the Warehouse or not, and this was a thousand times more personal than that.

On the other hand, if she was bipolar, then there would be states when she would be normal. She had those anyway, although they were few and far between. Perhaps, with treatment, she could prolong them, so that she didn’t have manic hallucinations or feel incredibly depressed. Plus, her treatment for schizophrenia hadn't done anything, and she did have a reset button, even if she wasn’t entirely sure how it worked or even what it was. It couldn’t really do any harm to go with it, and besides, it had to be better than schizophrenia. Anything was better than that.

“Actually, you know what?” Dawn said. “I’m fine with it. Whatever the treatment is, however it goes, it can’t be any worse than what it was before.”

There was a pause. Dr Calder clearly hadn't been expecting that, which wasn’t really all that surprising. Dawn hadn’t been expecting it herself. “Okay then. If you’re sure.”

She wasn’t. “I am.”

“Okay then.” Calder said again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I don’t see you for a long, long time.”

Dawn smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, me too.”

~*~

After Calder left, at a speed that almost equalled Mrs Frederic, Dawn decided to carry on her mission to find Joyce. It had already been waylaid once, and she didn’t really feel like going back and talking about a demon with the creepiest name she could think of, so she might as well finish it now.

She didn’t get very far, because she rounded a corner to see Angel standing there, with a bouquet of flowers in one hand. They looked rather incongruous. So did Angel, come to think of it, standing there all deathly pale and carefully not standing anywhere near anything that had so much as a chance of letting sunlight in. Dawn wondered what he was doing here, and how he managed to get in with the sun still up.

“What are you doing here?” Dawn asked, absently hoping that Joyce would appear and rescue her from what she was absolutely certain was going to be an awkward conversation.

She felt slightly better to see that Angel looked about as awkward as she felt. “I… I heard that Buffy was ill.”

Dawn didn’t ask how he’d heard, or what he was doing here given that he was supposed to be out of the country right now with pieces of an immortal demon – which, incidentally, she couldn’t see on his person. She just said, with all the withering scorn that she could imagine Buffy putting into her words if she was in this position “So?”

“I wanted to see her.” Angel said morosely.

“Right. So you scattered those pieces all over the world so that no one will ever, ever be able to find them again, did you?”

“N- I just wanted to see if she was alright.”

“Look. She’s doing okay. She’ll be fine. But she won't be, if you come rushing in every time she so much as scrapes her knees. She’s just got the ‘flu. I get that you haven’t been a human for a long, long time, but people don’t die from the ‘flu when they’re young, healthy, supernaturally resilient young women.”

Angel looked like he was going to make some kind of anguished declaration of love, but Dawn wasn’t having that. She had had a long few days. Not five minutes earlier, she had come to a major resolution that could have a tremendous impact on her life, and she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her sister’s complicated love life. Not to mention the fact that Angel was a vampire, and Buffy killed vampires, and even Dawn knew that no good could come out of a relationship like that.

“Okay. I don’t have a sword, or anything, and I'm pretty sure that you could probably take it from me before I even, you know, lifted it, and there probably isn’t anything that I can actually threaten you with but – stay away from her. I don’t know what kind of relationship you two had, but you need to leave. If anyone reassembles the Judge, then your love life is going to be least of anyone’s worries. So go. You’ve already said goodbye. There’s no point dragging things out endlessly. You might want to see her again, but let’s face it – is that really the best thing for you to do right now?”

Angel stood there for several seconds, looking inscrutable and broody and not even breathing. For a second, Dawn thought he was going to brush her aside and go and see Buffy anyway, but then the moment passed. “Could you… will you at least give her these?” he held the flowers out to her. “You could say you got them, or something.”

“Right. Yes.” Dawn took them automatically. Thinking that something else needed to be said, she added “Good luck.”

Angel didn’t reply. He just left, carefully avoiding patches of sunlight.

Okay then. It looked like Dawn wasn’t going to be going to find Joyce. If she carried on, Dawn felt certain that someone else would appear out of nowhere. Perhaps HG Wells would appear and… wave a time machine around, or something. It seemed possible.

So Dawn went back to Buffy’s room. She threw the flowers in a bin on the way.

She wasn’t particularly surprised to find that Buffy and her friends were still engaged in fruitless conversation. She sat down next to Buffy and said “So, this demon. Is it intangible, or just invisible?”

All heads turned to Giles. “Invisible, I think. Given the way it… feeds. Yes. Just invisible.”

After the incident involving MacPherson and the sword, Dawn had come up with a couple of ideas about what to do when faced with an invisible assailant. It had just been a thought exercise, although Dawn had also done it partly to prove that she could be useful to the team. Given that they knew what Der Kindestod was after, it wouldn’t really be all that hard to adapt her ideas.

So Dawn told them her plan, even though she was coming up with it even while she spoke.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

It was a simple enough plan. If Der Kindestod was just invisible rather than intangible, and he needed to get to the children in order to kill them, then he would have to open some doors. So if Buffy managed to get into the paediatric ward with a weapon, then all she had to was wait until a door opened by itself. Then she could swing the weapon, and that would be that.

“How am I meant to bring a sword into an area filled with children?” Buffy said. “It’s not like I’m invisible.”

Dawn shrugged. “That’s up to you. I'm sure Giles could act as doctor if he got the right coat, so he could hold off any real doctor if you needed him to, at least for a bit. Willow and Xander could probably cause some kind of distraction. You can come up with that part, right?”

“Well, sure but… wait. Hold on a second. Are you going somewhere?”

“I need to get back to work, and seeing as you’re basically fine now, if you don’t count a little demon problem, then… well, I need to get back.”

Buffy coughed. It was quite possibly the fakest couch that Dawn had ever heard. “Now that you mention it, I think that I might be having a bit of a relapse.”

Dawn smiled gently. “Yeah, that’s not fooling anyone. Seriously, Buff, you know my job’s important. I can’t just up and stay here whenever I feel like it.”

“Yeah, I know. But you could visit more.”

“I will. I promise. Once you’ve killed that really creepy demon, ‘cause no way am I hanging around when there’s a demon with a name like that on the loose.”

“Right then. Won’t you at least stay until Mom gets back?”

“Of course! You won’t catch me leaving without saying goodbye.” Dawn said. She didn’t add “Not you. Never you. I’ve done that with Claudia, and it broke my heart. I'm not putting you through that.”

So Dawn stayed, until Joyce returned with an epic tale of her journey to get coffee, which Dawn stayed for before saying that she had to leave. The leaving was awkward, as such things are when none of the parties involved really want to leave. But she did, and Joyce followed soon after. When they were gone, Buffy’s friends looked at her as though they were expecting her to say something. She didn’t know what they wanted her to say, so she just said “What?”

There was brief silence, before they started out fleshing the details of Dawn’s sketchily outlined plan.

~*~

When Dawn returned to the B&B, no one was there. This was strange, because Dawn would have thought that Claudia would have told her if she was going on a mission, and although there might well have been a ping there didn’t seem to be a reason for everyone to be out. It was weird. She would have thought that Leena-

“Hi, Dawn!” came Leena’s voice apparently from the kitchen. 

-at least would be here.

Dawn walked into the kitchen, and realised that she was actually rather hungry. This was good, because Leena seemed to be making enough food to feed a small army. “Where is everyone?”

“Don’t touch that!” Leena said. Dawn put down the sandwich and wondered if Leena had eyes in the back of her head. “Claudia’s at the Warehouse. The rest of the gang is in Russia.”

“Russia? Why?”

“Long story.”

“I’ve got time.” Dawn said. “Although I might not, if I don’t get something to eat soon.”

“I suppose you could have-“ Dawn picked the sandwich up again and took a large bite. “-one sandwich.”

“Sho, whatsh going on?” Dawn mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich.

“You know how Artie used to be in the NSA, back in the Cold War? Well, it turns out that he used to trade artefacts – not that he knew what they were – for political prisoners. Looks like the person he used to trade them too has turned up again. He dug up some stuff on Artie’s family back in Moscow, and they’re there to head him off. There’s a bit more to it than that, but Artie can tell you when he gets back.”

“Humph. I’ve haven’t even been gone two days and suddenly there’s international espionage. What an interesting life we lead. Are you sure I can’t have another sandwich?”

“Oh, why not? It’s not like the others will be back from Moscow for at least a day. Your teleporter is wonderful, by the way. They’re getting ready to catch him as soon as he arrives, whatever plane he takes.”

“Yeah, it’s a regular machine of… yeah, don’t know how to finish that sentence. Great sandwich though.”

Leena put something that smelled delicious into the oven, and then turned around. “And you? How was your trip?”

Dawn knew that, if she just said she was fine, Leena would leave it at that, although she might give her a disapproving glance. Instead, Dawn said “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? What do you see?”

Leena shrugged. “You look confused. Uncertain. I’m not getting that from your aura, though. Just your face.”

“What do you get from my aura?” Dawn asked, carefully not asking if it looked like a ragged, broken cascade of green.

“I can’t tell.” Leena said serenely. “It looks smoother, slightly, but… I can’t always tell what things mean.”

Dawn let out a breath that she didn’t know that she had been holding. “Yeah, well. You're not the only one.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help more.”

“Don’t worry about it. Those sandwiches did wonders. Speaking of which…”

“Don’t tell me you want another one?”

“Well, Pete does look hungry, and do you really want a hungry ferret on the loose?”

“Oh, so you want it for Pete, do you? How altruistic.”

“That’s me. Anyway, if everyone’s waiting for… the guy who’s after Artie’s family to get to Russia, what’s Claud doing at the Warehouse?”

“Hacking into the security feeds of the airports in Moscow.”

Dawn had a surreal moment when she realised that a sentence like that was perfectly ordinary in the life she was living. But then again, back in Sunnydale she could quite calmly help Buffy with her homework and then come up with a plan to attack a demon or something, so who was she to say what a weird conversation was? “So, anyway, if I give Pete some ferret food, then can I pop over to the Warehouse and give her a sandwich?”

Leena smiled. “Sure. Just so long as the sandwich actually arrives.”

Dawn struck an indignant pose. “Just what are you accusing me of?”

~*~

A while later, Dawn walked into the Warehouse. She hadn’t eaten the sandwich, although she had been sorely tempted. Claudia was doing something complicated, seemingly on several monitors at once, which gave Dawn a headache just looking at it. “Hey Claud. Sandwich?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Claudia reached out a hand in Dawn’s general direction, which Dawn promptly put the sandwich on. Claudia took a bite out of it, and then absently tried to use it to type something before realising that typing with sandwiches wasn’t really a tremendously good idea. “Well, I guess I can take a break for a few minutes.”

“Busy?” Dawn said, hoping that Claudia wouldn’t begin to get into exactly what was giving her trouble. While she knew how much Claudia enjoyed talking about technology stuff, Dawn wasn’t at home in the world of computers.

“Nah. This firewalls giving me a few problems, but nothing I can't handle.” Claudia span around. “Did Leena fill you in?”

“She gave me the gist, yeah.”

Claudia felt that Dawn was expecting her to fill her in on the details, but she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to know what Dawn had been doing, how she was. “How was California?”

“Well, I talked to a psychiatrist. I mean, you know that, but… okay, let me start again. Uh, how would you react if I told you that I might not be schizophrenic?”

Claudia blinked. “Uh, I think that people who generally stay stuff like that when they are, um, you know, well they probably aren’t right.”

“The psychiatrist, Dr Stirling, she says that I might be bipolar. Ultra-rapid cycling Bipolar I, she said. At first I was like you and thought that she was, well, nuts. But she might not be, you know? She said all this stuff, and it fits, it really did. I mean, you’re standard schizophrenic isn’t nearly as manic as I am, and… well, yeah. Bipolar.”

Claudia laughed shakily. “I don’t know whether I should congratulate you or not. I mean, is it even a good thing?”

“It’s got to be, right? Better, anyway. It means I'm not quite as stark raving mad as I thought I was.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s only poor taste if someone else says it. I'm allowed.”

“Right. Well, congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Claudia paused before saying “Really bipolar?”

“Seems so.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Bipolar.”

“Right.” Claudia sat down. “That explains quite a bit, actually”

“Yup.”

“I’m happy for you, Dawn, I really am. I know how much you wanted something… else.” Claudia fiddled with a bracelet absently. “Sheesh, I don’t know what to say.”

“Me neither. It kind of just happened.” Dawn sat opposite her friend. She cast around, looking for something to change the subject to, something easier to discuss. Her eyes alighted on a pair of glasses. “Looks like Artie’s left his glasses behind. He’s going to make a real spectacle of himself in Russia.”

Claudia groaned. “You did not just make that pun. Tell me you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t resist. I know you saw it coming, but I'm betting Artie wouldn’t.”

“Stop, just stop.” Claudia grinned. “Besides, they aren’t Artie's.”

Dawn frowned. “Did someone else get glasses without me noticing? I’m sure there’s a pun in there somewhere, but I just can’t see it…” 

“Don’t go there. Anyway, these glasses belonged to Martin Handford.”

“Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that I don’t have the faintest idea who that is.”

“You know ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Well, that’s the guy who created him.”

“I see. Well, I don’t, but I'm guessing that the glasses are some kind of artefact. Probably one that involves finding someone in a crowd?”

“Got it in one. I’m going to hack into the security feeds, and then sit here and wait until our man shows up.”

“Do you know what he looks like, though?”

“Nope. Don’t need to. That’s the cool part of these glasses.”

“That’s… really useful, actually. Why don’t we use them more often?”

“Because, when you take them off, you can’t find anything you’re looking for. Seriously, if I dropped something and went to pick it up again, I wouldn’t be able to find it even if it was right in front of me. Lasts for twice as long as wear the glasses for, too, so I'm not really looking forward to that part.”

“Ouch. Still, if you catch the bad guy… I’ll pass you anything you drop. Even if it is right in front of you.”

“Oh, you’re too kind.” Claudia asked sarcastically. “On an unrelated note; your teleporter.”

“Yes?” Dawn said somewhat warily.

“You want to sit down with me at some point and explain which bit does what? I know that the physics will probably go right over my head, but it’s got to be worth a shot, right? I mean, this whole situation would be so much more complicated if we didn’t have it, and if it suddenly breaks down and goes haywire…”

“Yeah. Okay. As soon as this crisis is over, I’ll be happy to.” Dawn wondered how Buffy was getting on, back in Sunnydale. She wondered how the others were doing, off in Russia. She wondered about herself, and her future, and whatever crisis would inevitably follow this one. For this first time in a long while, she actually felt optimistic.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

The plan, to everyone’s surprise, worked well. Even though there were three main airports in Moscow, as well as a myriad other ones which a standard civilian shouldn’t be able to access, leaving the trio rather stretched. Claudia spotted him in Domodedovo, and Myka shot him with a Tesla before he even knew what had happened. He turned out to be the son of the man who Artie had traded artefacts with, back in the Cold War, out for revenge. Myka took his artefacts, and then wondered what to do with him. This was hardly a sanctioned trip – she doubted that the Russian government would take kindly to having one of their citizens taken back to the States against his will, especially given that they could hardly tell them why. They couldn’t exactly sneak him out, not with the resources they had with them.

As it turned out, the necessary resources were just a Farnsworth call away. Mrs Frederic resolved to sort everything out, and there would soon be another bronze statue decorating the Warehouse. Not for the first time, Myka wondered just how powerful the Regents were.

~*~

Meanwhile, back in Univille, Dawn was true to her word. She did try to explain to Claudia what each individual piece of her teleporter did, in relation to the rest of it. She wasn’t very good at it, because she was a physicist, not an engineer. Claudia hadn't had the education that Dawn had, so some of the terms that Dawn used went way over her head, and Dawn didn’t know how to break it down into terms that Claudia would be able to understand. She didn’t know much of the technical jargon, either, so some of Claudia’s questions were equally impenetrable. 

When it became clear that this wasn’t going to go anywhere, Claudia decided to drop it. It wasn’t that she thought that she wasn’t going to get anywhere – she and Dawn working together had almost managed to get Joshua home without even knowing about artefacts, surely they could solve this eventually – but because Dawn, since her new diagnosis, honestly seemed to be getting better. Before, there had always been a slight melancholy air around her, even on her best days. There was always the expectation that things would go downhill again, and when they did it would go downhill hard. She seemed hopeful, now, that she might be able to reach an equilibrium between crashing so hard that she was little more than a flaming, depressed wreck and flying so high that she didn’t sleep and saw things that weren’t there.

So Claudia didn’t bring it up again, because she didn’t want to remind Dawn of a time when things were otherwise. Perhaps Dawn, too, would have left things alone if she had been a different sort of person. Claudia compartmentalised, shut out things that were too outrageous to deal with. Dawn couldn’t do that. So, even though she was feeling more stable than she had for a long time, she kept working on the problem, trying to figure out why the teleporter worked the way it did rather than the way she had designed it. 

And then, quite suddenly, Dawn wasn’t stable. It had started innocuously enough. After dinner, Dawn had decided to try another angle on the problem. So she’d gone into her room, and rapidly filled a large sheet of paper with tiny, messing equations, formulae, crossings-out and addendums. She had become so focused that she didn’t even notice when the sun came up. She only realised that she’d worked through the night when Claudia came in to get her for breakfast, which she didn’t want because she knew that she was onto something here, and inspiration was sleeting through her brain, and who had time to eat anyway? So she said that she wasn’t feeling hungry at the moment and that she would grab something to eat later. Maybe. If she had time.

Then she turned back to her working and realised that it was complete rubbish which covered only a tiny fraction of the problem and certainly wouldn’t do anything to resolve it. She couldn’t understand how she had managed to spend so much time on something so utterly insignificant.

She wanted to try to again, to keep trying until the door wouldn’t even open because of the vast amount of paper that would be lying everywhere. She felt as though the solution was just out of reach, so close that she could reach out and grasp it if wasn’t for the fact that she was quite blatantly being sabotaged.

And just like that she had an idea, and suddenly everything was alright again.

A few moments later, Claudia came back to see if Dawn was okay, but couldn’t find her. This was strange, because she certainly hadn't left the B&B – everyone was downstairs, and they would definitely have noticed if Dawn had tried to sneak past them.

Then Claudia realised that Dawn didn’t need to use the front door to leave, not when there was a teleporter in the next room.

~*~

Thankfully, Switzerland was hours ahead of South Dakota, rather than the other way around. It would have been pretty awkward if Dawn had turned up in Joshua’s apartment in the middle of the night, while he was sleeping.

As it was, she just interrupted him while he was having lunch. To his credit, Joshua hardly flinched when a girl suddenly materialised in front of him just as he’d taken a mouthful of tartiflette. He didn’t even spit it out. Instead, he just swallowed (albeit with some difficulty), and said “Dawn, what are you doing here?”

“I came to ask you a question.” Dawn said, almost before Joshua had finished speaking. “I wanted to know why the pocket dimension, you know the one, you spent twelve years in it, I wanted to know why it collapsed.”

“You came all this way to ask me that?” Joshua said, trying to gauge just how stable Dawn was at the moment.

“Well, yes, of course. Stop wasting my time with stupid questions and just give me the answer, will you? I'm onto something here, I know I am. Just answer already!”

Not very stable, then. “I don’t know.”

Not seeming to have taken any note of Joshua had said, Dawn went on to say “Because, see, I based part of my formula on yours, and if yours was unstable then I might have carried that bit across, so I need to know which bit you did wrong so that I can fix it.”

“I don’t know, Dawn.” Joshua said as calmly as he could. “Perhaps teleporting is just a volatile process, even with an artefact.”

“Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. You think that I didn’t even make a teleporter, that I made some machine that only works because I believe that it does. Of course you’d think that it’s unstable – look at what it did to you! But it doesn’t have to be, no, I can make it so that it isn’t, so that it works. But I need you to tell me why what you did didn’t work.”

“I don’t know, Dawn. You have all my notes. You even cannibalized my version back at Caltech for parts. If there’s a reason, then you’d have figured it out by now. I don’t think that there’s any reason that it started to come apart. I think that’s just what it does. Your machine works differently, but neither of ours worried the way they were supposed to. Teleportation is meant to be impossible, Dawn. You shouldn’t be surprised that there’s been a few problems with it. The best minds in-“

“Don’t tell me what other people think. They don’t matter. I can do this, I can. I'm smarter than they are. I got this far, and I didn’t use any artefacts. I can solve this last part, if you’ll just stop lying and tell me what I want to know.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Dawn. I wish I could help you, I do, but there’s nothing I can say. So I'm just going to sit here, and I'm going to eat my lunch, and that will be that. The teleporter I tried to build is right over there. You're welcome to try and get it to work again. I’d ask you if you wanted anything to eat, but I don’t have anything to offer.”

Dawn was quiet, for the first time since she’d gotten there, but it wasn’t the quiet of someone who had nothing to say. It was the kind of quiet of someone who looked like they were about to explode. Joshua got the feeling that this meal was going to give him terrible indigestion.

And then quite suddenly Dawn smiled, and moved over to the teleporter. In a matter of moments she had disassembled most of it, leaving pieces strewn across the floor. Joshua realised that he had lost his appetite.

It didn’t take Dawn long to put the teleporter together again. She’d done it so many times now that she could probably do it in her sleep. When she was done, she turned to Joshua and said sweetly “Use it.”

“What?”

“Use it. You don’t believe that it will work, do you? So there’s no harm in using it. If you're right, nothing will happen. If I'm right, then you just built it wrong. So use the machine, Josh.”

Dawn was right. Joshua didn’t think that it would work. He’d watched Dawn, and she had done exactly what he had done when he’d made it. He knew that he hadn't made any mistakes. He believed that Dawn had made a Hieronymus machine, and given that he didn’t think that it would work, it wouldn’t.

Even so, he still felt reluctant to try it out. But Dawn was sitting there, looking at him expectantly, and she was quite obviously going through something right now, and it wasn’t like this would involve him getting stuck in a pocket dimension again. So he got up, and set the coordinates so that it would teleport him to his bedroom, and then he activated it.

A scant second later, Joshua realised that he really needed to clean up his bedroom. He heard Dawn call from the other room “See, I told you it wasn’t a Hieronymus machine!”

Joshua slowly walked out, to see Dawn looking at him expectantly. “Okay. So… okay. It works. I don’t get how it works, but it definitely works.”

“Yes. Yes, it does, and I can make it even better if you would just tell me why yours… didn’t.”

“Dawn, I am telling you. That is, there’s nothing to tell.”

Dawn’s expression became thunderous. “Fine. I’ll work it out for myself then. Because there is an answer, I know it. And I will find out what it is.”

So Dawn turned, and set the coordinates to go back to South Dakota. And then she was gone.

~*~

Dawn began to list everything that she could think of that could have led to the deterioration of Joshua’s pocket dimension, when something occurred to her. She didn’t feel tired, even though she had worked all night. She didn’t feel hungry, even though she hadn't eaten for hours. She felt focused, as though all that really existed was the problem in front of her.

She recognised the symptoms as being manic. That wasn’t interesting, though. The interesting thing was, unlike the last time that she had teleported, when she had abruptly reset to not being a panicky mess, she had taken two trips and still felt as full of energy, as focused as she had before.

Then Dawn set this aside, and got back to work.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

The list wasn’t long. In fact, Dawn wasn’t even sure that it counted as a list. She had always thought that a list had more on it. Maybe it counted as a list purely because it was set out like a list. She didn’t know. Maybe she could find out about that later.

The list that contained every reason she could think of about why Joshua’s pocket dimension would collapse had only two entries. The first, Dawn knew, was a worthless guess that was unverifiable and of no use whatsoever. It simply said:

Random fluctuations in the space-time continuum.

This got her precisely nowhere. The second entry, however, had a little more promise. But it wasn’t as though she could actually do anything about it, and it was the kind of pseudoscience that you only got with artefacts and so didn’t apply to her case.

Claudia spent years trying to find out what happened to her brother. This caused some link between them, explaining why he appeared to her. The merging between the two dimensions caused the smaller of them to become unstable.

This, Dawn thought, had potential. It might well explain what had happened to Joshua. But it was completely worthless in respect to her own case, because her teleporter didn’t rely on sticking people in a pocket dimension in order to work. In fact, once she’d built the thing no one had even done any work on it, so there was no way that anyone could have formed a link with it, even if it was an artefact.

So Dawn had wasted her time. Again. She’d wasted her entire night on something, and now she’d gone to Switzerland and back and she still wasn’t any further forward. There had to be something she was missing, something that someone was hiding-

“Dawn?”

The voice came from behind Dawn, and seemed surprised. Dawn knew without turning that it would be Claudia, but she turned anyway. “Yes?”

“Um. You're here.”

Dawn smiled. It was a bitter, twisted thing. “Probably. Does that surprise you?”

“Yes. I mean, no, but I came up earlier and you’d gone and… so I'm surprised that you're here here, not that you're somewhere, you know?”

“I went to see Joshua. I had a question for him. It’s not important.”

“What was so urgent that you-“

“I told you that it wasn’t important.”

“Okay.” Claudia paused, not quite sure what to say. “Are you alright?”

“Me? Yes. I'm good. Now, did you want something or did you just come up here to chat? Because I'm busy. I have things to do.”

Claudia looked around the room, at the scrunched up ball of paper on Dawn’s desk and the bed that clearly hadn't been slept in. “Like what?”

“I thought I’d learn Chinese.” Dawn said. She hadn’t intended to say that, she hadn’t even been thinking it, but it did make sense. “Maybe if I'm occupied with something else, then I’ll suddenly get an idea about the teleporter. Plus, you know, billions of people speak Mandarin, so why not learn it?”

“I… see. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, yes, I feel great, thanks. Actually, can I borrow your car? There isn’t a library in Univille and if I teleport to, say, Featherhead then I won't be able to get back.”

Claudia got the distinct feeling that letting Dawn behind the wheel just then would be a very bad idea, but she didn’t want to say that. As odd as it seemed, even though Dawn was quite clearly going through something right then, she still seemed better. When she was like this she normally barricaded herself in her room. Claudia wasn’t entirely sure what Dawn got up to, but going by the way she looked when she eventually emerged it involved copious amounts of terrifying hallucinations. Now, even though Dawn hadn't slept or eaten anything, she was at least doing something. She was confident enough to go out into the world, rather than cowering under her desk for fear that the Abomination would get her. Claudia didn’t want to say anything that might change that. “Maybe you should have something to eat first? You know Dr Stirling told you about the importance of a steady diet, and- ”

“Don’t patronise me.” Dawn said. It was though a shutter had gone down behind her eyes. She had been warm, and mobile, and now Dawn looked like she might possibly hit her. “Of course I remember. But I'm not hungry. So, car?”

Claudia didn’t want to push Dawn further, but also, she really didn’t want her driving. She sought for some reason that might possibly delay her, or at the very least get her to eat something. “Dawn, if your studying, you know that being hungry means that you won't be as efficient, right? You might get-“

“I’ll grab something on the way, then.” Dawn interrupted, and almost before she had finished the sentence she had walked past Claudia and was already halfway down the stairs. As she went, she was formulating a study plan. If she started with the vowels – they were called finals, weren’t they…

Claudia followed her hurriedly, and was just in time to see Dawn grab a slice of bread. “Look, I have food now. Can I use your car?”

Claudia was saved from answering by the timely arrival of Leena. Claudia thought that she had ever been so glad to see her. “I’ll drive you. I need to go to Featherhead anyway, for some supplies.”

Dawn nodded, not paying much attention. She was wondering if it would it be worth the time it would take to memorise how each Chinese character changed depending on what tone was used. It would definitely be useful, but there were some five thousand of them, as well as four tones. She thought there were four tones. Maybe there were five...

“Come on then.” Leena said gently. Dawn followed her out.

Claudia let out a breath that she didn’t know that she had been holding. She didn’t even realise that Pete and Myka were there until Myka asked quietly “Claud? Is she… is she normally like that?”

“You heard?” Claudia said dully. The pair nodded. “I don’t know. Before, when she was… she hid herself away, you know? So I only saw her when she was more balanced or, um, down. When she couldn’t be bothered to even do that… um. I think that’s how she was back when she obsessing over solving teleporting. You know, when she barely slept. Only now she's more… confident, so she’s not locking herself away and focusing on just one thing.”

“How long does it last?” Pete asked. He looked like he would rather not ask that, like he would rather say something silly and lighten the mood or something, but obviously even he couldn’t avoid the issue.

Claudia shrugged. “Don’t know. The type she has is uncommon. She says Stirling told her the average was 13 weeks, but for Dawn it could be a lot shorter.” She didn’t add that the bursts of mania would probably be more common, too, because she could see that having told them that Dawn might be like this for about 3 months was enough for them to deal with.

~*~

Dawn didn’t like travelling. Never had. She’d even had motion sickness when she was younger. Now that she had a teleporter that could take her across the world in a second, it seemed like a massive waste of time just driving to the next town over.

As they drove, Dawn began to realise exactly why NASA’s journeys into space had pretty much stopped these days. With massive radio telescope arrays, they could see out further into space than ever before, and better versions were being designed all the time. There wasn’t a need to go out there, when it was all coming to them.

If was a shame that she needed to move through space to get somewhere. Even her teleporter worked on that principle. If only there was some way that she could make it so that space moved to where she was. Of course, that would entail-

Then Leena spoke, which not only derailed Dawn’s train of thought but lead to it crashing and burning. Dawn was irritated about that, because she had felt as though she was on the verge of a breakthrough of some sort, before realising that she’d just been engaged in an idle fantasy.

“So, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that? I feel great.”

Leena didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to, Dawn realised. When Leena didn’t speak, it wasn’t the sort of companionable silence that she could quite happily not fill. It seemed to pull words out of her, even when she didn’t really want to speak. “Why? Do you see something in my aura?”

“I haven’t looked.” Leena said peaceably. “Is there something that I should see?”

“Well, Claud was looking at me as though I might possibly explode, and I'm pretty sure that I'm manic right now. I wondered what it would look like.”

Leena didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Have you ever seen an explosion, Dawn?”

“Of course. I’ve seen movies.”

“It looks like that. Only it doesn’t, not really. It looks like it’s exploded but… hasn’t, yet. Like it’s exploded in such a way that it doesn’t look like it’s exploded.”

“You know, normally I'm the queen of garbled sentences, but that one went way over my head.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Duh.” Dawn would have pressed the issue, but she didn’t really have any interest in it. “’m not getting anywhere with my teleporter, by the way. Normally things make some sort of sense, like, I can see where I should go. I don’t even know where to start.”

“You’re a physicist, Dawn, so I don’t expect you to understand this, but… not everything makes sense. The universe is bigger than you could possibly imagine. There is…”

“A world of endless wonder?” Dawn interrupted wryly.

Leena laughed. “Yes, exactly! Some of it… we just can't understand. We might be able to see it, touch it, measure it… but that doesn’t mean that it will make sense to us. I see auras, Dawn, and half the time I don’t have a clue what they mean. I’ve seen them all my life, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll get them.”

Dawn looked out of the window, at the vast expanse of the South Dakotan Badlands. She wasn’t an expert on geology, but she knew roughly how they came to be. She knew why the skies were blue, and why clouds existed. She knew so many things.

There was a pattern here, she knew. People were hiding it from her, but she could see the edges of it. It was only a matter of time before she would understand. She would understand everything.

~*~

Leena dropped her off at the library in Featherhead, and Dawn quickly amassed a pile of everything related to the study of Mandarin. She continued studying without a break for hours, and she didn’t even notice when she fell asleep, her body overcome by exhaustion.

It took her roughly a week to return to a stable mood. The cycle repeated, although it was helped by the fact that (with the help of Dr Stirling) Dawn set up a diet regime, and started running every morning, and went to bed at regular hours. The cycles were less frequent than they had been when she had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Hallucinations were rarer.

She spent a lot of her time in Sunnydale, with her family. She felt as though she had missed a lot, over the time that she had spent in the psych hospital and at the Warehouse. So she was there, and she always lent an ear when Buffy complained about Slaying. She helped her with her homework, and even helped out at Joyce’s gallery sometimes. She felt at home there, more than she had back in LA. She didn’t feel like a fifth wheel, like she did at the Warehouse.

So, when summer vacation came, and Dawn had been stable for some weeks, she asked Buffy if she wanted to go on a road trip. Buffy, knowing how quiet Sunnydale was in the summer, and wanting to spend time with her sister and not in the place where everything reminded her of Angel, said yes.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Dawn was, she knew, rather intelligent. Academically brilliant, in fact.

She was also socially inept. She didn’t like travelling, and although she did like her sister, driving for a long, long time with someone who you were keeping secrets from was remarkably unpleasant. After a few hours, social pleasantries run dry, but Dawn couldn’t tell Buffy about her job, about her own life, about what she did outside of the time in Sunnydale. So, while she could most definitely talk, she couldn’t actually say anything that was worth saying.

It was almost a relief when they got to LA, and the car broke down. Dawn managed to get it to a mechanic, who assured them that it would only take a few hours and an exorbitant amount of money to sort out the engine. Dawn honestly thought she could probably fix it herself – internal combustion systems weren’t complicated – or get Claudia to fix it in a few seconds, but she was on holiday and didn’t really feel like it. Besides, the Warehouse easily had enough funds to cover it.

“Bet you it wouldn’t have happened if I had been driving.” Buffy said.

“Pfft. Dream on. That’s a company car, and you don’t even have a license. I'm not going to let you even touch the wheel.”

“Spoilsport.” Buffy muttered.

“That’s a big sister’s job.” Dawn replied amiably. “Anyway. Are you hungry?”

Buffy looked around. “Well, yeah, but couldn’t you have picked a less crummy place to break down? I doubt that there’s anywhere decent to eat for miles.”

Dawn shrugged. “If it had been up to me, I’d have broken down outside some fancy restaurant, but I guess that fate has other plans. Besides, crummy though this place may be, I have a Slayer with me, and if they try anything they’ll wish that they’d moved onto easier pickings. Like maybe Bruce Lee.”

Buffy looked at her sister, amused. “Did you mean to rhyme that much?”

“Nah. Sometimes it just happens. So, which crummy greasy spoon do you feel like patronising?”

“I’m pretty sure that I can patronise all of them all at once from right here, but if you mean which one shall we go to, why not that one?” Buffy pointed to one at random.

“That one it is.”

It was the kind of place where the waitresses want to be there even less than the truckers who frequented it wanted them to be there. Dawn murmured “Though I walk through the valley of crummy diners, I fear no misogyny; for thou art with me, and you will totally kick their asses if they try anything.”

Buffy snorted. “What will-“

They were interrupted by a sob. The pair turned, and saw a blonde woman staring morosely at a piece of pie. Before Dawn could say anything, Buffy had already gone over at slid herself into the seat opposite the blonde. Dawn quickly followed, feeling more than slightly awkward.

“Are you okay?” Buffy said gently.

The blonde didn’t reply, but Dawn wasn’t watching her. She was watching Buffy. This was a side to her that she hadn’t seen before – although Dawn had given Buffy the sword that she had used to kill the Judge with, and listened to her complain about the hours that Slaying forced her to keep, she had never gone out on patrol with her or even seen a demon, besides Angel and tiny chopped up Judge pieces. She’d seen the teenage side of Buffy that struggled with her schoolwork and boy trouble. She hadn’t really seen the Slayer side before. It was interesting.

“It’s Rickie.” The blonde said. “He’s gone. He’s never been gone this long. But people say that he went into the youth centre, but the people there say that they’ve never seen him, bu-but he wouldn’t just vanish. He’s not like that.”

Buffy frowned, and Dawn guessed that it wasn’t just because of the story. “Have I met you before?” Buffy said eventually. “I'm sure we’ve met.”

The blonde looked up from her pie. It wasn’t anyone that Dawn had seen before. The blonde also frowned, focusing her red-rimmed eyes on Buffy.

Then Buffy sat back in her chair. “Ahh… you were one of those people who wanted to get turned into vampires. Ford’s gang.”

The blonde smiled a self-deprecating smile. “Ha. I'd almost forgotten that. I'm Lily these days. And you… you’re Buffy. The one who saved us from the vampires.”

“That’s me.”

“Maybe… maybe you can help me find Rickie?” Lily said, and the hope on her face was almost physically painful.

“Maybe.” Buffy repeated. “We’ll see.”

~*~

“Y’know…” Buffy said to Lily “For a youth hostel, this place sure has a lot of old people around.”

Lily wasn’t listening. Instead, she was intently staring at one of the old men. The old man was staring at her, too. “Rickie?”

“’m no one.” The old man mumbled. “No one.”

Dawn, who had often thought that exact same thing, found that immensely disturbing and wished that she was at home, far away from people who thought they didn’t exist. Lily grabbed the old man’s wrist and rolled up his sleeve. There was a tattoo there, a half-heart with her name in it. “Rickie! What did they do to you?”

“I don’t know.” Buffy said, looking around. “But it looks as though all of these guys are coming from back there.”

Lily scrubbed at her eyes, and then straightened. Dawn realised that she’d been hunched over since they’d met, as though trying to make herself small. “You think the… people who did this are back there?” To her credit, her voice didn’t shake.

“I don’t know.” Buffy said again. “But I'm guessing yes. Maybe some kind of youth-sucking demon?”

“Right then. Let’s go deal with them.” Lily said. Buffy looked like she was going to say something about a civilian coming in, but then she looked at her sister and didn’t say anything.

They went through a door at the back of the room, moving past the old people who were slowing trickling through.

On the other side, Dawn say quite possibly the most surreal thing that she had ever seen, and that included a Warehouse that was way bigger than just about any building she’d ever been in, all the artefacts she’d seen and her hallucinations.

There was a man, with his arm submerged in a pool of what looked like dirty water. It looked as though he was fishing for something he’d dropped in. As they watched, he pulled out a whole person by their hair. Both of them were perfectly dry.

The man who’d done the pulling realised they were there. “Oh. You seemed to have caught us at a bad time. Still, no matter. You’ll all be in for bad times, soon. About a hundred years of bad times.”

“Oh, I see.” Buffy said. Dawn looked at her, surprised, because she certainly didn’t. “You take people in there, and they come out aged. What is it, some hell dimension where time runs faster?”

“You’re smart. Too smart for your own good. Still, that won’t do you any good down there.”

Buffy shrugged. “Smart isn’t all I am.” And she cannoned into the man, bearing both of them into the pool. They sank without a trace, without a ripple. Lily made to follow her, but Dawn stopped her.

“Don’t. You won’t be able to help her. Besides, if time really does run faster on the other side, she should be out in a couple of seconds.”

However, when Buffy didn’t immediately pop back out again, Dawn began to wonder just how a dimension where time ran faster would work.

Obviously, the pool was some kind of gateway, but how did that work? If there was any overlap between the two dimensions, Buffy would get torn apart – parts of her would move at different speeds, through different times. She wouldn’t be able to go straight through, either, for the same reason. There would have to be an in-between dimension, somewhere where each and every atom could be bound together so that Buffy wouldn’t get ripped to shreds, and that binding would have to happen to each atom at the same, aha, time. The in-between realm couldn’t just be a place where time didn’t exist, otherwise Buffy would obviously not be able to leave it – maybe it was something like Joshua’s pocket dimension, except that had been unstable and Dawn highly doubted that the in-between dimension could be, otherwise that would cause all kinds of problems. But the question was-

Then Buffy came back. She wasn’t alone – there were dozens of people coming back with her, of varying ages. Buffy looked noticeably more ragged, tired and thin than she had when she had gone through – which made sense, given that she could have been gone for hours or even days.

First of all, Buffy made sure everyone was okay – and to her mild surprise, was joined in this by Lily, who was surprisingly competent. Then she went over to Dawn.

“How was it down there?” Dawn asked, hoping that she wouldn’t be given any details.

“Dark, hot… you know, just generally not nice.” Buffy absently shifted her weight and winced. “Not the kind of place you’d want to go for a holiday.”

“How long were you gone?”

Buffy shrugged, then looked as though she regretted it. “A day? Two? Not sure. Could really do with a nice hot shower and a good night’s sleep.”

Dawn tilted her head. “You want to go home?”

“If that’s alright with you. I don’t really feel up to more road trip-y goodness.”

“Nah, no problem. The mechanic is probably done with the car by now anyway.”

“Oh, I hope so.” Buffy looked like she might possibly fall asleep where she stood, but she also looked as though she wanted to check on everyone and see if they were okay.

“You know, we can probably leave Lily to sort this stuff out. She seems surprisingly good at it.”

“Yeah?” Buffy seemed a little reluctant.

“Yeah. Buff, you aren’t going to do these guys much good if you pass out on top of them.”

“Point.”

~*~

They made their way back to the mechanic, who had indeed fixed the car. Buffy fell asleep about three seconds after sitting down, and Dawn thought about driving to the teleporter instead so that they could get back faster. She decided against it, not just because she wasn’t sure if it was stable but also because she doubted her ability to get Buffy into the room without waking her up. Besides, she’d driven from LA to Sunnydale often enough now that she could probably make the journey in her sleep – it was no big deal to make it again.

~*~

However, there turned out to be a slight problem caused by not teleporting – namely, having to come in through the front door. For Buffy, this wasn’t much of problem because she was operating on autopilot and barely seemed to wake up during the walk from the car up to her bed. It was somewhat more of a problem for Dawn, who most definitely was awake and was also confronted by a somewhat confused Joyce, wondering why they were back so soon and why Buffy was so tired.

Dawn had lived in Leena’s B&B so long that she was used to having people coming back in varying states of disarray. She didn’t really think about it anymore. And given how much she and Buffy talked about her Slaying, Dawn had completely forgotten about the fact that Joyce didn’t know what Buffy got up to of an evening. Dawn hadn’t even thought about coming up with a suitable reason.

“What happened?” Joyce asked anxiously.

Dawn thought rapidly. “We went… clubbing?”

Joyce gave this reply about as much credence as it deserved. “I knew it was a bad idea, letting you two go on a road trip… I knew it would-“

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Well, I mean, Buffy’s flunking her classes – her teachers say she sleeps through most of them, and she skips classes like nobody’s business. And then there’s these weird things that happen… and then there’s you, and I know that you’re… that you’re better now, but still… I shouldn’t have let you go. What happened? I mean, what really happened?”

Dawn sat down. “Did you know that, up to the age of about six months, babies can’t grasp the fact that the universe still exists when they can’t see it? That’s why peekaboo is a thing – the babies genuinely think that you’ve disappeared when you cover your face with your hands.”

Joyce seemed thoroughly nonplussed. “What? Are you saying you went out and hid from babies?”

Dawn laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “No, of course not.”

“Then what? What's your point?”

“The point is, after six months, babies stop being quite so solipsistic. They know that things are still there, even when they can’t see them. Their brains develop. Except, sometimes, when they’re adults and they see something that they don’t want to see, they close their eyes and hope that it will go away. That, if they don’t look at something, it won’t be there. That they can ignore it out of existence.”

“You’re saying that I… what are you saying that I'm doing, exactly?”

Dawn sighed noisily. “Since I… got back, you know, from… anyway, since I got back, you’ve been great. You both have, really. I know that there’s a stigma attached t-to mental illnesses, but you haven’t treated me any differently. Neither of you have. And that’s great.” It didn’t mean that she was ready to tell them about being diagnosed as bipolar, though. “But, when I was in the hospital, you never… you even said yourself that you run away from things that you can’t deal with.”

“I’m lost.” Joyce said. “What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything. I just think that tomorrow, you should ask Buffy why she sleeps during class, and skips school, and flunks classes when she’s clearly bright. You should ask her exactly what she’s doing at the library at all hours, seeing as how she obviously isn’t studying. And then, assuming that she’s willing to tell you, I suggest that you listen. Because there’s only one person in this house who’s crazy, and no matter what it sounds like, it isn’t her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long day and I’m going to bed.”

Joyce remained where she was, once Dawn had left. She stared blankly at the spot where Dawn had been sitting, trying to digest what she had just said. Eventually, she said “Well, how am I going to get to sleep now?”


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sleeping, after having spent days trekking through a hell dimension, was quite possibly the best sleep that Buffy had had for years. She’d even managed to sleep through the night, which given her Slayer tendencies was a pretty rare occurrence. But the fact was that she had been so worn out that she had basically collapsed on her head fully clothed, which now left her with the unpleasant fact that she was now waking up in clothes that she’d worn while trekking through a hell dimension. This was not a nice way to wake up – Buffy thought that she might well have to burn these clothes, and maybe her bedclothes too. But before she decided on arson she supposed she should probably have a nice long hot shower.

That had been the plan, anyway. As with most of Buffy’s plans, it went awry rather quickly. In this case, it was because Dawn appeared in the hallway almost as soon as Buffy set foot in her doorway. The fact that Dawn had done this so quickly made Buffy strongly suspect that Dawn had been waiting for her to wake up, which was never a good thin, especially not when combined with the rather apologetic expression on her sister’s face. although Buffy was really not in the mood to deal with her sister’s problems – or indeed do anything other than shower – Buffy still managed to find the energy to say “What’s up, D?”

“I don’t suppose that you would mind showing Mom some spectacular display of physical prowess, would you? Like, I don’t know, a triple somersault or lifting the fridge above your head, or something.”

Buffy gave this as much thought as her tired, shower-deprived mind could muster. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I go and do a thing like that?”

Dawn looked away sheepishly. “Well, see, the thing is… I might possibly have alluded to the fact that you’re not exactly studying in the library, and that there’s actually a good excuse for why you keep sleeping in class.”

“And the question just keeps on coming. Why would you do that?”

“Don’t know. It just kind of… slipped out, I guess. I had this great speech about not wilfully ignoring things, completely off-the-cuff, and it just kind of… came out. She doesn’t know about, you know, but I suggested that she ask you and actually listen when you replied. It occurred to me about a three seconds after I left that it was probably a bad idea to even go that far.”

“Uh huh. Right. And I don’t suppose that you’ve been up all night thinking of a good explanation that doesn’t involve me fighting the forces of evil?”

“Umm… you’re secretly a fencing champion, and you stay up late at night practicing and it takes a lot out of you. We went to LA for a tournament, where you got soundly thrashed and so we came home. Don’t look at me like that! It’s the best I could come up with.”

Buffy sighed. “Fine. I’m going to have this shower, and I'm going to think about what to say, and I'm pretty sure I can come up with something that sounds more convincing than that.”

“Oh, good. Anyway, I just thought that I should probably give you a heads up, you know, so you don’t get blindsided.”

“Thank you.” Buffy said, and if her voice was sarcastic then surely Dawn couldn’t hold it against her.

The shower was a remarkably disappointing experience, not at all the kind of thing to which she had been so looking forward. Nevertheless, Buffy put off leaving it as long as possible, and when even she admitted that it was time she got out she still contemplated leaving through the window after she got dressed. Instead, she just went downstairs.

Joyce looked like she hadn’t slept, which wasn’t really all that much of a surprise. She hadn’t. “Hi, Buffy. Do you… we need to talk.”

“I’m secretly learning to fence.” Buffy blurted. “That’s why I stay up at night, and we went to LA for a tournament, and I didn’t want to tell you because… I actually fight the forces of darkness and the first part of what I said is a complete lie.”

Joyce stared at her, incomprehension in her tired eyes. Then she turned to Dawn and asked “What did she just say?”

“She fights vampires, Mom.” Dawn said gently.

“Demons, too.” Buffy supplied helpfully.

Joyce looked from one daughter to the other, and neither of them knew how she would react. They watched their mother in a similar way to a bomb expert might look at an unexploded shell.

Whatever reaction they had been preparing for, though, certainly hadn’t involved laughter. Even if it was hysterical and went on just slightly too long. “Oh, my. Just how long have you been planning that one?”

“Uh, Mom? Remember what I said about not immediately discounting what Buffy said? Well… this is the point where you shouldn’t do it.”

“I shouldn’t be sceptical when I get told that my daughter… what did you say? Fights the forces of darkness? How else should I react to that? Scepticism is the perfect response.”

“I did try to tell you before, you know.” Buffy said. “Back when we all lived in LA. I tried to tell you and Dad.”

“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that. We thought you were just acting up, going through a phase or something. And then you burnt down the gym, and it looked like we were right.”

“I burnt it down because it was full off vampires!”

“How can you say these things? Especially with… you know what Dawn’s like. How can you be saying these things?”

Although the Summers’ kitchen wasn’t small, there wasn’t exactly the room for a triple somersault, not if Buffy wanted to be sure that she wouldn’t accidentally break something. So instead, she walked over to where Joyce and lifted the chair that she was sitting on. Her arm didn’t shake, and when she spoke she sounded as comfortable as Dawn would be if she had just reached for some cereal from a high shelf. There was no sign of exertion as she lifted her mother and the chair she sat on above her head. “I’m the Vampire Slayer, Mom. I’m stronger than most people. Faster. It’s true, I swear.”

“Y-you can put me down now.” Joyce said in a small voice.

Buffy did so, and took a step back to give her space. It was a lot to deal with, she knew. She remembered when she had first been told.

After several seconds, Joyce looked at her oldest daughter. “How long have you known?”

Dawn shrugged. “Since before my first diagnosis. Months before.”

“Is that why you-“

“I don’t think it helped, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“But you’re not-“

“Shouldn’t think so. That’s a bit out there even for Buffy.”

“Thank God.” Joyce said. Then: “Who else knows?”

“My friends.” Buffy said. Then, as an afterthought, she added “And Cordelia.”

“Are they Slayers too?”

Buffy shook her head. “There’s only ever one at any one time. I'm the only one there is.” She decided not to mention that Oz was a werewolf.

“And that man, the librarian – Giles?”

“Him too. He trains me, teaches me what I need to know. Ms Calendar helps too.”

“Ms… Calendar? Your computer teacher? Does everyone know but me?”

“No, it’s just them. That’s it.”

“But… why? Why do you do it?”

Buffy sighed. “This is going to be a long day.”

~*~

And it was. Buffy felt as though she was being interrogated. She supposed that it was only fair.

Dawn, for her part, felt glad that she wasn’t going through this. Joyce barely asked her anything, just a few questions to corroborate what Buffy was saying. She wondered if Joyce would ask her exactly what she did at the ‘NSA’ and if it had anything to do with this. She wondered how she could conceivably deny everything, if she did ask.

Eventually, Joyce ran out of questions. She asked for some time to be alone and digest everything that she had heard. The two sisters were only too glad to give her that.

When they left, Buffy contacted her friends, asking them to meet her at the library. She figured she should let them know what had happened, so that when Joyce inevitably sprung questions on them they wouldn’t be completely unprepared.

When she was done, Dawn said to her “So, you couldn’t come up with anything better than the fencing story, huh?”

Buffy looked at her for a long second, and then burst out into sheepish laughter. As she did so, she felt as though tension that she hadn’t even known she was carrying evaporated. “I guess not.”

~*~

Eventually, everyone arrived in the library, except for Cordelia who was on holiday in Mexico with her family. Xander was the last to arrive, and didn’t look best pleased to be there. Coming into school during the summer, even if the library was quite possibly the least visited part of the entire building and was filled with arcane books and archaic weaponry, was anathema to him.

Buffy decided to skip the small talk, even though a couple of people had already asked why she wasn’t on a road trip with her sister. Instead, she just said without preamble “I told my mom that I’m the Slayer today.”

There was stunned silence for several seconds – no one had been expecting that to be the reason they had been called there. Then Willow said “That’s great, Buff!”

“I don’t have to tell mine, do I?” Xander added dubiously.

“How did she take it?” Jenny Calendar asked.

Buffy shrugged. “Not sure. She seemed kind of panicky this morning, and I think she’s kind of in shock now, but I'm hoping she’ll be okay. She wasn’t shouting or screaming or going into denial, so I'm thinking it’s going to be alright.”

“Buffy, as much as I'm glad you, uh, decided to share with your mother, I must say that it may not have been the best of ideas. You know the perils of this life as well as anyone-“

“It was the right thing to do, Giles.” Buffy said firmly. “I’ve been lying to her for years now, and it’s been… kind of yucky, really. I feel a lot better now that everything is out in the open. I don’t have to sneak out of the window any more, or lie about all the weird stains on my clothes, and – it’s just better, okay?”

“I see. Very well.”

“Nice to see you approve.” Buffy said sarcastically.

Jenny put a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder. “What Rupert means to say is-“

“I have something to say.” Dawn said suddenly. Everyone was surprised, including herself. She hadn’t been intending to speak, but… hearing how much better Buffy felt now that the secret was off her chest made her want to say something. There still things she couldn’t share, of course, but she could share this. “Something I want to share.”

“Dawn…” Buffy said warningly.

“No, it’s okay.” Dawn took a deep breath. “Hello, my name is Dawn Summers, and I’m bipolar.”

“Oh.” Willow and Xander said at the same time.

“That explains a few things.” Oz said neutrally.

“I work in LA,” okay, so maybe this wasn’t going to be an entirely truthful sharing “which is why I'm not here an awful lot, and, um, partly because… actually, you know what? I’m just bipolar, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Bipolar?” Buffy whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

“Got re-diagnosed a while back, but didn’t want to mention it to you in case you worried. I’m much better than I was before.” Dawn whispered back.

“So you’re not-“

“No. No, I’m not.”

Buffy found herself grinning like a maniac. Sure, being bipolar wasn’t great, but it had to be better than schizophrenia, right?

~*~

Buffy was right. It was a long day, especially when they went back home and Dawn told Joyce about her new diagnosis. She thought that maybe she should wait until tomorrow, given that Joyce had already had a rough day, but Buffy wasn’t going to let her get away without the whole story and Dawn didn’t really feel up to telling it twice.

When she was done, Joyce said “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have – why didn’t you say something?”

Dawn wasn’t sure if she was talking to Buffy or to her, about Slaying or being bipolar. It didn’t matter, she realised. The answer would be the same for any of the above.

So Dawn said something similar to what she had once said to a young woman in a psychiatric hospital, who was struggling to deal with something that she had just seen but couldn’t really believe. “Some things are too outrageous to deal with. I didn’t want you to have to… I didn’t want to make you carry that.”

Joyce smiled. “Someone told me once that I have a tendency to stick my head in the sand. I think I should probably say that, if you pull someone out of the sand long enough for them to hear what you’re saying, that they might actually be able to help you. I might have stuck my head in the sand, Dawn, but you’d be just as isolated if you didn’t tell anyone anything.”

Dawn smiled back. “You’re probably right.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Novikov’s self-consistency principle really exists.

The thing about Leena’s B&B was that, sometimes, people turned up thinking that it actually was a B&B. Of course, this being Univille, visitors were few and far between - but it did> happen. Leena generally had to come up with an excuse to make them go away, because having normal people in the same building as Warehouse agents was all kinds of bad.

So, when someone came knocking on the door, and everyone was in the dining room, they all thought that it was one of those rare occurrences. Dawn, being the nearest to the door, go up and opened it.

The sound of the door slamming about one second later put everyone on guard. “Dawn? What’s up?” Myka called out.

“Uh.” Dawn said coherently. “Would you guys mind coming here for a second?”

Everyone managed to crowd into the hallway. Dawn had managed to manoeuvre herself so that she was behind the others. Now that they were all prepared, Pete flung open the door.

He didn’t know what he expected to see, but it definitely hadn’t been this. 

“May I come in?” HG Wells asked politely, hefting a duffel bag.

“What are you doing here?” Myka asked, in a voice that was clearly trying not to come across as hostile but wasn’t quite making it.

“Well, I was hoping to talk. But if I’ve come at a bad time-“

“Yes, you’ve come at a bad time!” Artie said, his voice unabashedly hostile. “Any time is a bad time for you! What do you want?”

“I want to work for the Warehouse.” HG said simply. “I thought I'd already made that quite clear. In any case, I’ve brought you some artefacts as proof of my good intentions.”

“You’ve got artefacts in there?” Leena said, but before HG could reply she’d already snatched the bag from her. “Do you have any idea what can happen when you just pile artefacts together like this?”

“What does happen?” Pete said, short attention span and curiosity getting the better of him.

“You don’t want to know what happens!”

HG coughed gently. “So, about coming in?”

Before Artie could slam the door in her face, Myka interjected. “Maybe we should hear her out, Artie.”

Claudia looked down at her hands, as though they were just about the most interesting thing that she had ever seen. “She did save my life.” She mumbled. “I think we should give her a chance.”

“Have you never heard of an ulterior motive?” Artie snapped.

“I see.” HG said slowly. “Well, in that case, I suppose I had better get going.”

“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere, except to the Bronze Sector.”

“Well, if you’re going to bronze me regardless, you might as well hear me out.” HG said reasonably. “I promise I won’t struggle.”

“She has a point, Artie.” Pete said. When Artie gave him a glare that would’ve put Medusa to shame, he added “Not that you want to hear her points, anyway.”

Artie threw up his hands. “Fine! You have five minutes. Five! And if I don’t like what I hear then you are going straight to Bronze Sector.”

“Fair enough. May I come in then?”

There was some shuffling as everyone tried to get out of the cramped hallway so that HG could come in. This was only made harder by the fact that Artie clearly didn’t want her within a hundred miles of her, and was doing his utmost not to turn his back on her.

Eventually, they were all back in the dining room. HG and Artie were standing, the latter practically vibrating with anger. Pete was lounging against the wall, trying to look as though he wasn’t tense. Leena had put on a pair of purple gloves and was busy rummaging through HG’s bag, seemingly unconcerned by the standoff. Only Myka, Dawn and Claudia were sitting.

“Do you know how difficult it is to catch up to your agents?” HG said, speaking directly to Artie. Obviously, she could tell that she had to get on his good side if she was going to stand a chance of re-joining the Warehouse. “I hear about something which sounds as though it might be artefact related, but by the time I get there your people have been and gone. I can't for the life of me imagine how you manage to travel so quickly.”

No one mentioned the teleporter in the room upstairs, although Artie did say “They would be remiss in their duties if they were beaten to an artefact by, by you.”

“Let her finish.” Myka said soothingly.

“Yes, well. The point that I'm trying to make is that I had hoped to prove myself by helping in the field. As I did once before, when that young lady was in trouble. But, seeing as how that was impossible, I had to scrounge for… lesser artefacts, ones which might not come to your attention. It was the only thing I could think to do, in the circumstances.”

“You’ve got Roosevelt’s crutch in here. That’s hardly a minor artefact. We’ve been looking for that for over fifty years.” Leena said without looking up.

HG coloured slightly. “Yes, well, I had some luck there. You see-“

“I don’t care.” Artie said flatly. “I don’t care if you brought us the Eye of Horus. You're not joining us. You killed MacPherson, and you stole from us. You were bronzed for a reason, and I'm not going to let you work for us. Is that clear enough for you? Or do I have to say it yet again?”

HG was silent for several seconds, obviously looking for something that she could say to lessen this overwhelming hostility. Before she could say anything, though, Dawn said “What do you get when you dig and find several pools of mercury?”

Everyone was thrown by this, which was understandable given the fact that it was so entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. Seeing that no one was going to reply, Dawn said “Hg wells.” Claudia laughed nervously, but stopped when no one else joined in. 

Dawn was about to explain the joke when Myka said “She saved my life, Artie. And Claudia’s. She hasn’t done anything to make you treat her like this.”

Artie looked like he might have an apoplectic fit. “She hasn’t – she killed MacPherson!”

“Um, Artie?” Dawn said softly. “He would’ve killed me if she hadn't. And it’s not like MacPherson was a good guy. He brainwashed Leena, framed Claud, stole artefacts… don’t get me wrong, she’s still really scary and seeing her kill someone right in front of me was… yeah, well, but the fact is that she saved my life too. And MacPherson wasn’t a good guy. I know he was your friend, but, well, he just wasn’t.”

“Before you ask, Artie, I'm staying out of this one.” Pete added.

“I wasn’t going to ask your opinion. I didn’t want any of yours. The fact is that she is dangerous, and that is all. I am your boss, and so when I say that she’s going to get bronzed, then that is what is going to happen.”

“Actually, no, it’s not.” Said a new voice. Everyone turned, and no one was particularly surprised to see Mrs Frederic standing there, even though no one had noticed her arrival.

“What do you mean?” Artie protested. “She’s dangerous! She’s a threat to the Warehouse, and-“

“We have taken that into consideration. We have also taken into account her history, and the report that Agent Bering filed after she and Claudia met her in the field.”

“Her history? James wiped her history, there’s nothing left. How-“

“The Regents have alternate sources of information. Believe me when I saw that her past is well known to us.”

“So you’re going over my head. You're going to disregard everything I’ve said, all my years of experience, and you're going to overturn that just because… why? Because she managed to win over a few agents which she met once. Once!”

“Arthur, there are things at work here that you cannot begin to understand. Ms Wells will become a probationary agent. That is the decision of the Regents, and you will abide by it. Am I clear?”

Artie sat down. It was either sit or collapse. He felt, literally and figuratively, as though he didn’t have a leg to stand on. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good.” Then Mrs Frederic turned to face HG. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Warehouse.”

“Thank you.” HG said. She clearly didn’t know what had made Mrs Frederic overrule Artie – it was quite possible that she didn’t even know who Mrs Frederic was – but she was obviously glad that she had.

“Well, um, welcome aboard then?” Pete said uncertainly.

“Are you sticking around?” Claudia asked. She looked at Mrs Frederic. “Is she sticking around?”

“I… it certainly appears that way.” HG said slowly.

“Congratulations.” Myka said warmly, standing up and extending her hand. HG looked at the hand for a few seconds before reaching out to shake it. She seemed slightly surprised by how friendly Myka was being – which perhaps wasn’t a surprise, after how Artie had treated her.

“Welcome to the team.” Claudia said.

“Try not to kill anyone while you're here.” Dawn added.

Artie just crossed his arms and silently fumed.

~*~

For the next couple of hours, things were really awkward. Artie had shut himself away in the Warehouse, and no one wanted to disturb him in case he yelled at them, or possibly exploded. Neither Pete nor Claudia were quite sure how to react to suddenly having HG around, even though Myka was trying (perhaps a little too hard) to be welcoming. Dawn had retreated to her room, and was wondering if she could get away with spending the foreseeable future in Sunnydale, or at least until things weren’t quite so mind-bogglingly uncomfortable. Probably not, she thought. It would be a bit too impolite.

And then, a few hours later, someone else knocked on the door. Dawn couldn’t help but wonder if it was MacPherson, or Angel, or someone else who really shouldn’t come knocking on the door. Given the day so far, it wouldn’t be all that much of a surprise.

It wasn’t MacPherson, or Angel, or even Jules Verne.

It was a woman. Not one that Dawn or Claudia recognised, although Pete and Myka clearly did. “Rebecca! Hi! What are you doing here?” Pete said, ever the soul of tact.

Dawn and Claudia turned in unison to look questioningly at Myka. “You remember the Spine of Saracen? The artefact that… that electrocuted Pete to death about a year and a half ago?”

Dawn did. She remembered it clearly. She remembered standing out in the rain and wondering if, maybe, the world would be a better place if she wasn’t in it. Pete had talked her down.

She was glad he had.

“Well, Rebecca used to be an agent. She’s retired, but she helped us out with the Spine.”

As it turned out, Rebecca was here because she’d read an obituary for a man that she and her partner had suspected was behind a string of murders, back in the ‘60s. They thought he’d used an artefact to turn his victims to glass. The obituary gloated about how he owed his life to agents. 

The strange thing was that Rebecca couldn’t remember the day in question. She had no idea what had happened. She did remember investigating the case, but she certainly hadn't solved it. She didn’t remember Jonah Raitt, the suspect, escaping. The day was just a blank.

HG had stayed silent throughout all of this. She didn’t know this woman. She didn’t know the team’s past cases. She’d never heard of the Spine of Saracen. And given how new she was, and the fact that people were already on edge around her, she didn’t want to butt in where she wasn’t welcome. But when she heard that Rebecca didn’t remember the day, she asked “The whole day?”

Rebecca frowned. “No, actually. I blacked out for 22 hours and 19 minutes.”

Pete blinked. “That’s… exact.”

“I’ve got a good eye for detail.”

“22 hours and 19 minutes?” HG repeated. “You're sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I know what happened to you. Someone used my time travel machine.”

Dawn spoke. She couldn’t help herself. “I don’t believe you. No way did you build a time machine. That’s not possible.”

Pete chuckled. “Uh, Dawn? You’re talking to HG Wells. Why quibble about a time machine?”

“Because time travel is impossible! I mean, with the technology of a hundred years ago, you couldn’t even begin to come up with a theory to time travel, let alone actually do it! I mean, look at wormholes… even if we could find one, and if it didn’t get flooded with radiation, you still couldn’t send a human down it. It’s too small The other theories … we didn’t even send a human into space until 1961, so the other theories are just straight up impossible, at least for the time period.”

“I’m not talking about physical time travel. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that… but I developed a machine that could send a mind back in time. I based it on the concept of gestalt, you know, the collective subconscious? The mind could only stay in the past for 22 hours and 19 minutes, though. I never did work out why.” HG replied. “I would be interested to discuss these other theories you mention. These… wormhole you mention sound intriguing.”

“A mental time machine?” Dawn asked. “How does that work? Where does the extra mind go?”

HG smiled slightly. “I’d be happy to explain it to you, but I don’t think that now is the right-“

“Time?” Pete interrupted cheerfully. “Probably true. So you’re saying that someone used… will use? Has used? Whatever the right tense is, your time machine to hijack Rebecca and her partner’s bodies?”

“That would certainly seem to be the case.”

“Why?”

HG shrugged. “I don’t know. But I imagine that we’re going to find out. Or rather, you are.”

“Me?” Pete and Myka said in unison.

“You are the field agents, are you not? If anyone if going to be travelling through time, I imagine that it would be you two. In any case, I must stay behind to operate my time machine, and I doubt that Artie would allow these two young ladies to go.”

“I doubt Artie’s going to let us go at all.” Myka said gloomily.

“Novikov’s self-consistency principle.” Dawn said, as though that explained everything.

Pete spoke for everyone when he said “What?”

“Novikov’s self-consistency principle.”

“We heard you the first time. We’re just wondering what you’re talking about.” Pete said.

“Basically, Novikov’s principle means that, when travelling through time, the probability of an event happening that would cause a paradox is zero. So, given that Rebecca has a gap in her memory caused by time travel, the probability of us not travelling through time is zero, so someone has to travel through time so that there isn’t a paradox.”

Most of them were used to Dawn talking like that. Even Buffy was used to having a sister who occasionally spouted physics so complicated that it bordered on the arcane.

HG, however, wasn’t used to that. Back in her day, not only had those principles not been discovered, but it certainly would’ve been frowned upon for a woman to rattle them off so glibly. So she was looking at Dawn in surprise. “That’s true. My own… experiences would seem to indicate that time travel is fixed. It is interesting that someone so vehemently opposed to the idea of time travel would know such a theory, however.”

Well, Dawn certainly wasn’t going to mention some of the reading she had done into prophecies and other related things after Buffy had told her that she was supposed to die and the Master was supposed to be set free. Given that most prophecies were false or so vague that they could have applied to just about anything, Dawn had come to the conclusion that time travel wasn’t involved. Of course, she did have access to the kind of library that Giles had, so she couldn’t research prophecies that actually came true…

So Dawn just shrugged.

“So you're saying that Artie literally can't stop us from back in time?” Myka asked.

“Uh huh.”

~*~

As it turned out, Artie could stop them. He could stop them even though Dawn explained about the laws of causality and the theories of time travel. He could stop them even though Pete gave an impassioned speech about why he really wanted to time travel. He could stop them even though HG said precisely nothing and tried not to draw his ire.

He could stop them right up to point when Rebecca told him that she was dying.

“I have cancer.” Rebecca said, as calmly as though she was announcing that she was going out for a walk. “Terminal. I’ve already… the doctors say I should be dead by now. Artie, I feel as though I’ve been holding on, waiting for this. This has to happen. This should have been over decades ago. So come on, Artie, let’s finish this now.”

Even then, Artie looked like he was going to forbid it. He looked angry enough to try and take on the laws of time by himself. Then, realising that, really, he couldn’t fight fate he just threw up his hands and stormed off. Everyone took this as permission to go ahead.

Pete gestured in front of him, saying to HG “Lead the way, Time Lord.”

~*~

The 22 hours and 19 minutes of Pete and Myka’s trip was rather uneventful, at least for the people left behind. HG tried to explain to Dawn exactly how her time machine worked – and failed miserably, perhaps because the science she had used was based on concepts that had been out of date for about a century, or maybe it was because HG had actually made an artefact and any attempt at trying to understand how it worked was doomed to failure. Dawn didn’t want to think about the latter and the implications that it had for her teleporter.

The interesting part happened when Pete and Myka got back. It was innocuous enough. Dawn was sure that no one else thought anything of it.

It was simply HG saying “Not bad for a… Time Master, did you say?”

Pete launched into a detailed history of Doctor Who, announcing that Myka should really catch up on the culture of the last hundred years, and really Myka should probably join in too…

Dawn wasn’t listening to that. She’d stopped listening after HG had said ‘Time Master’.

Time was fixed. This experiment had proved that. Novikov’s principle was correct.

Dawn was thinking about the prophecy which said that Buffy would die and the Master would break free. Buffy had died, albeit only temporarily, but the Master hadn’t broken free of his prison. Hadn’t done anything, in fact, due to having died in the earthquake.

But, at the same time as Buffy had died, someone else had broken free. Dawn remembered Claudia telling her, just after she'd given Napoleon’s violet to Buffy, that MacPherson had brainwashed Leena into helping him free HG Wells.

This told Dawn two things. Firstly, that she needed to talk to Giles and find out the exact phrasing of the prophecy. Secondly, she needed to find out what Mrs Frederic has meant when she had said that ‘there are things at work here that you cannot begin to understand’. Because it sure sounded as though the Regents had known that HG would be needed, so that she could use her time travel machine. Which meant that the Regents knew something of the future.

Dawn needed to find out what, exactly, they knew.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dawn didn’t immediately go to Sunnydale and start demanding answers from Giles. She wanted to, of course – how could she not? – but she knew how people would take things if she just up and left. Besides, she wasn’t ready for HG to know that she’d built a teleporter. She wasn’t sure that she trusted her, even if she was supposed to be here.

So instead, she walked into the kitchen and unplugged to microwave, which she then proceeded to lug up to HG’s room. It took some careful manoeuvring and a lot of nerves, but eventually she managed to knock on HG’s door. Then she stood there awkwardly, holding the microwave, while there was absolutely no sound coming from inside. Maybe it was too late in the day. Maybe HG was asleep. After all, not everyone kept the same hours she did. Maybe she was waking her up. She should probably-

HG opened the door. She looked tired, but she was fully dressed so Dawn supposed that she probably hadn’t been asleep. She was struck anew by how bad this idea was. “Um, hi.”

HG looked down at the microwave in Dawn’s arms. If she knew what it was, she gave no indication of it. “Hello.”

“Um, I was thinking, after our, uh, talk about how your time machine works that I could probably show you how more… recent technology works. This is a microwave. I don’t know if you know what a microwave is… or what microwaves themselves are, come to think of it. I know you’ve been out and about for the last couple of months but I'm not really sure what you’ve picked up. Anyway, I brought this microwave so that I could explain how it works. Actually, now that I think about it would probably be better if I got Claudia to show you, because she’s a better engineer than I am – I hear that my, uh, the things I make shouldn’t even work, but… I should probably stop talking now, right.”

HG had just been standing there in the doorway, looking like a perfectly serene Victorian gentlewoman who was being imposed upon. “What exactly did you come here for?” she asked in a voice that was obviously trying to be polite, even if it had a faint tinge of irritation to it.

“Science.” Dawn said, actively trying to say as few words as possible so that she didn’t start babbling again. “This works on it. Modern science, I mean. I thought I’d show you how.”

HG looked as though she was going to tell Dawn to stop being so patronizing, which she wasn’t, she was just trying not to drown them both in a stream of words. Then Dawn shifted slightly, which made her already fairly precarious grip on the microwave even less, and she had to quickly put it on the floor before she dropped it on her feet. Dawn was now absolutely certain that coming here was a bad idea.

“Why?” HG said.

Dawn shrugged. “I like science.”

“I am under the impression that, even in this century, people don’t turn up with an offer to discuss science. Especially not in your case, given that you’ve already come out and said that I scare you.”

Dawn flushed, and looked away. “I-I didn’t mean it like that. I, uh, you’re probably a nice person, but… well, you are kind of scary.”

Whatever HG was feeling right then, her expression gave no indication of it. She might as well have been feeling nothing at all. Not that Dawn noticed that, because she couldn’t bring herself to look at the other woman. “That is my point. I scare you. Not entirely without reason, I might add. The majority of your colleagues treat me with responses varying from outright hostility to suspicion. And yet, despite all of this, you are at my door carrying some device, wanting to talk.”

Dawn absently started chewing on a stand of hair, before realising what she was doing and stopping. “I… I get scared by quite a lot of things, really. Most of them I can’t do anything about. But you’re here, and, you know, human, so I thought that rather than hiding in my room and never, ever coming out again, I might as well talk to you. I kind of doubt that you're going to… um. I guess you get the point.”

HG was silent for a long time. Dawn just looked down and tried to keep herself from fidgeting.

Then HG sighed, and stood aside. “Come in.”

So Dawn picked up the microwave and went inside. The discussion rapidly got to the point where Dawn was trying to tell HG all the developments in electromagnetic theory over the last century, which was difficult because Dawn had next to no teaching skills. She tended to skip over entire periods, only to rush back and hastily cover them. She got the impression that HG was only sticking with this because she was being polite.

Then, suddenly, while Dawn was in the middle of a garbled explanation of the strong nuclear force, HG interrupted her. “How old are you?”

Dawn blinked, and had to choke back the answer that was on the tip of her tongue. She doubted that HG would take it well if Dawn said that she didn’t know, but was at least a few thousand years old. “22.”

HG opened her mouth, about to say something, but then thought better of it. Eventually, she said “Please, don’t take this the wrong way, but… why are you here?”

“Didn’t we already cover that?”

“Not why you’re here, in this room. Why are you here, at the Warehouse?”

Dawn didn’t know how to reply to that. She’d thought they were getting on okay, and the HG came out and said something like that? How was she supposed to take that? It hurt. She hadn’t said anything like that Claudia, and Claudia was younger than she was. She’d been wondering the same thing herself, of course, even more so after the quill had been neutralised. Having a stranger who may or may not be evil say the same thing after having only been here for a day… “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“Why aren’t you still in school, or with your family?” There was a slight hitch in her voice on that last word.

Dawn wasn’t going to go into her history, not with HG Wells. That just wasn’t going to happen. Ever. “Tried that. Tried both of those, actually. Still ended up here.”

“The thing about the Warehouse is that the people who end up here generally don’t belong anywhere else. They belong here. Take Pete for example – can you really imagine him working for the government? And anyone can see that Myka and Claudia fit here like a hand in a glove. And I…” HG trailed off, and then gestured at the disassembled microwave in front of her. “But you are obviously ferociously intelligent. You just don’t seem like the kind of person to find themselves here.”

Dawn didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know if she’d been complemented or not. She didn’t have the faintest idea of how to take that statement. “I think I’d better go. It’s late.”

HG nodded once, and then looked away. “Maybe you’re right.”

Dawn left quickly, not even stopping to pick up the pieces of the microwave. She knew she’d probably get in trouble for that tomorrow – well, actually she probably wouldn’t. In the mood Artie was in, he’d probably blame everything on HG regardless of whether it was her fault or not.

When Dawn left, HG didn’t touch the pieces of the microwave either. She didn’t as much as look at them. She just lay back on her bed, and her hand automatically went to clutch the locket that hung around her neck.

~*~

Dawn wasn’t entire sure what time it was when Buffy called. It was early, she knew. It was still dark. She wondered what had happened to make Buffy call at this hour. “Hi, what’s up?”

“Did I wake you?” Buffy said. She didn’t sound worried, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Buffy was perfectly capable of hiding her worry from her sister, if she felt that she needed to.

“Nah. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

“No. Not… really. I shouldn’t be calling you. It’s really, really early. I just back from this long patrol, and I totally didn’t realise what time it was. Sorry. I call you at a more reasonable hour.”

“No, wait! Obviously it’s something important, and we’re both here now, so… why not just tell me?”

“It’s nothing, really. I shouldn’t bother you.”

“Spill, Buffy.”

“I, uh, want your advice on something.” Buffy paused, seemingly to wait for Dawn to protest about just how ridiculous that was. When Dawn didn’t say anything, Buffy continued, saying “Well, you know Xander and Willow?”

“I do. I also get the distinct feeling that you’re trying to avoid the point.”

“Sorry. Anyway, um, Willow’s dating Oz, and Xander’s dating Cordelia, and, um, I kind of caught them making out in the library this morning. They didn’t see me, but… what do I do? Do I tell them I saw them, or what?”

Dawn tried to figure out what Buffy was saying, but she was tired, and she’d never had even the slightest interest in who was dating who. She was kind of surprised that Buffy was calling her to ask her about relationships in the first place. “You saw all four of them making out?”

“What? No! I mean, I saw Will and Xander.”

“Oh.” Dawn wondered what she was supposed to say. She didn’t have anything that even remotely resembled experience with relationships. “Uh… what do you think you should do?”

“I don’t know! I feel like I should tell them, but that will be really awkward, but then I can’t really not tell them, can I?”

Dawn didn’t have the faintest idea. She decided to pick an option purely at random, because… well, she wasn’t exactly equipped to make an informed choice, was she? “You should tell them.”

“Right. That’s what I thought.”

“Um, Buff? If that’s everything… would you mind if I go to sleep? It is kind of early…”

“Oh, right. Sure. Of course. Good night.”

“Good night.”

~*~

Dawn managed to get to sleep. It seemed like only a matter of moments before she was woken by someone knocking on her door. Her first thought was that HG was probably going to come in with a washing machine or something and get her to explain how that worked, but she quickly realised how ridiculous that would be. Especially given that she hadn’t even managed to satisfactorily explain a microwave to her. Dawn quickly got dressed and opened the door.

“What did you do?” Claudia said, coming into Dawn’s room as though an open door was all the invitation she needed.

“Good morning to you too.” Dawn said sourly. “What did I do what?”

“Artie’s just about ready to blow his top downstairs. HG says – well, when Artie lets her get a word in – that you were showing her how the microwave works, and Artie is… really not happy about that. And that’s an understatement.”

Dawn sighed, and then walked outside. “Hey, Artie!” she yelled down the stairs. The sound of the argument cut off. “HG didn’t do anything. It was my fault. I was trying to friendly. And now I’m going to go home until you calm down. Okay? Cool. See you. Bye!”

Claudia whistled. “You know he’s going to kill you.”

Dawn shrugged. “I wanted to go home for a bit anyway. Let me know when he’s stopped looking like he’s going to explode, will you?”

~*~

Dawn didn’t go straight to the Summers’ house, though. Instead she teleported herself to just outside the school library. While she was here, she might as well talk to Giles.

After walking into the library, she was taken completely by surprise to see Giles, Oz, and two people she didn’t recognise all armed with crossbows. Not only armed with crossbows, but pointing those crossbows at her, and looking as though they might very well shortly be armed with crossbows that weren’t pointed at her, because she would be riddled with crossbow bolts.

“Who are you?” Giles asked.


	30. Chapter Thirty

Dawn was doing quite well, these days. Her mood swings were few and far between, and even during her most manic phases she didn’t really think that she was the Key, even if she did feel somewhat paranoid.

But earlier HG had questioned why she was working at the Warehouse, and now Giles seemed to have completely forgotten she existed. Not a nice experience for someone who had doubted that herself. “Uh, Dawn. I’m Dawn. You know, Buffy’s sister? We have met before, you know.”

“Buffy who?” Oz said. Dawn might’ve thought that this was some kind of joke, albeit one in incredibly poor taste, if it wasn’t for the fact that both Oz and Giles seemed completely sincere in their confusion.

“You know. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? About yea high, strong, peppy?” Dawn looked at Oz’s blank expression, which was echoed on the faces of the two others that Dawn didn’t know. “Not ringing any bells here, am I?”

Giles, however, looked as though something was just occurring to him. “The Slayer? You’re the Slayer’s sister? But she’s in Cleveland. She’s never even set foot in Sunnydale. Why would you think she’s here?”

Okay. If Dawn was having some kind of mental break, this was a weird one. Even by her standards. She didn’t have the faintest idea why Buffy would be in Cleveland. She knew nothing about Cleveland. But she had visited Buffy here a lot, and she did know her friends. Admittedly, said friends seemed to believe they didn’t know her and that she was in a completely different state…

Before Dawn could say anything, Cordelia came storming in. Out of all of Buffy’s friends, Dawn knew Cordelia the least. Buffy had warned her that she would probably say something incredibly tactless, and Dawn just didn’t want to deal with that. She’d had enough of that back at her own high school in LA – where Cordelia, wearing a bright blue dress that would be more suitable to a cocktail party than a school, would probably fit right in. “Oh my God, Giles! What’s going on? I feel like I’ve fallen into bizarro world or something. Everything’s gone completely wacko!”

“Good lord, Cordelia, what are you wearing?” Giles exclaimed. “You’ll have vampires after you like moths to a flame if you're not careful.”

Cordelia looked at Giles as though she was trying to fit his words into her thoughts, but finding that they weren’t a good fit decided to discard them entirely. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Everyone’s suddenly gone all mopey and grim!”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? The moment the sun sets you’ll have vampires all over you! You should get changed at once.”

“Wow. You’re being even more British than usual.” Cordelia said. She sounded stunned. She turned to Dawn. “You’re not contagious, are you?”

Dawn started at that. “What?”

“Well, everything’s seems to have gone crazy, and here you are.” Cordelia gestured at her vaguely. “And no one seems to have heard of Buffy.”

Dawn blinked. Okay. So Cordelia obviously knew her, and knew Buffy. Unlike Giles, Oz and whoever the other two were. So it couldn’t just be Dawn in this situation. Maybe there was some kind of artefact business going on? That was the only thing that she could think of that made any sense. Although she was sure that she hadn’t come into contact with an artefact, and if Cordelia had then there was no reason that it wouldn’t affect her the same way it seemed to have affected the rest of the town.

“So, let me get this straight.” Giles said slowly. He pointed at Dawn. “You say that you’re the Slayer’s sister. I don’t remember anything about you when I…” he trailed off, seemingly embarrassed, and turned to Cordelia. “And you expected Buffy to be here as well. And you seem to know Dawn. Why?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Cordelia said as though this entire situation was the universe playing some kind of prank on her and her alone. “She’s been here for, what, two, two and half years now? You’re her Watcher. How do you not know her?”

Oz said “Does anyone else feel as though they’re missing half of this conversation?” The other two nodded.

Giles started polishing his glasses. “How did you know that I was supposed to be a Watcher?”

“Because up until yesterday, you were her Watcher.” Dawn said. “She lived here, did her Slaying here, and you were her Watcher. Cordelia was, for want of a better word, her friend. Oz too. I don’t even know who you two are, but she had this little gang that used to go out and save the world. And suddenly it seems like that never happened.”

Oz snorted. “Too right.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Cordelia said indignantly, still acting as though this was some sort of personal affront.

“I don’t know what’s going on, why you two seem so utterly convinced that Buffy lives here, but almost three years ago the Master rose, and Sunnydale…” Giles gesture seemed to take in not only the crossbows but everything about the town itself.

Dawn frowned. “The Master?” HG Wells had a time machine. Sure, it seemed like it only created stable loops, but obviously something in the past had changed, and she was the only person that Dawn knew who could do that. Of course, she didn’t have the faintest idea why she’d want to make sure that Buffy went to Cleveland – but then maybe some future HG was behind this, and had something against Buffy because Buffy had done something, something that she hadn’t done yet… and HG hadn’t called herself the Master, either. She didn’t know why she would, what with being a woman and everything…

Dawn was getting a headache.

“The Master. You know, evil vampire. Looks like a bat.” Oz said.

Oh. That Master. Okay. Dawn not only didn’t know what was going on, but had no idea where to even start finding out what had happened.

Cordelia looked just as confused as Dawn felt. “But Buffy killed him ages ago.”

Giles looked at her. “Not even he has to power to travel through time and prevent the arrival of the Slayer.”

And then, suddenly, it looked like Cordelia was having some kind of epiphany. “Oh. Oh!”

“Oh?” Dawn said, still confused.

“I made a wish. I wished that Buffy had never come here, because then Xander would still be some annoying dweeb and I wouldn’t care that he cheated on me.”

Oz looked at her as though she’d just grown a new head. “Well, Xander’s definitely not an annoying dweeb now. He’s a vampire. A really, really sadistic vampire.”

Cordelia carried on as though Oz hadn’t spoken. “But it was just a wish, right? I mean, since when do wishes result in everything going to hell? Like, literally to hell?”

Everyone looked to Giles, as though expecting him to have the answers. Going by the expression on his face, he didn’t. He looked like he didn’t even have the slightest idea. “I guess we’d better call the Slayer, then. If what you’re saying is true, and she vanquished the Master once before… she seems like our best hope.”

~*~

When Giles said that they had better call the Slayer, what he actually meant was spend minutes on end rummaging through piles of paper looking for the contact details of her Watcher. Dawn didn’t even want to ask who the Watcher was. She felt like the less she knew about this weird place, the better.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that she could call Buffy herself. Possibly. Assuming that Buffy hadn’t gotten a new phone number to go with her new reality.

So Dawn brought out her own phone, and called Buffy. Or tried to, rather. She couldn’t get through. Not because Buffy’s phone wasn’t in service, but because Dawn’s wasn’t. It didn’t work. Oh, it was charged, it even had Buffy’s number stored in it. It was exactly the same as it had been when Buffy had called it early that morning. Except that now it didn’t seem to be connected to any phone network.

Dawn decided to file that away with the rest of… well, the rest of the entire day, so that she could deal with it some other time when an evil vampire wasn’t in control of the entire town. Instead, she turned to Cordelia, looked at her sheer dress and complete lack of pockets, and then asked Oz if she could borrow his phone. He gave it to her without a word.

Buffy picked up the phone almost immediately, which was kind of a surprise. She hadn’t expected Buffy to have the same number. She’d had it since Hank had gotten her a phone for a present, back when they’d been living in LA… automatically, Dawn began wondering if there was some kind of divergence point, some moment when her world and this one had split off. Besides Buffy going to Cleveland, of course, because there had to be some reason that that would happen.

“Hello? Who is this?” The voice was guarded, cautious, but also undeniably Buffy’s. Dawn felt relieved that there was something about this reality that was familiar.

Of course, at that point Dawn wished that she’d actually thought through what she was going to say. She’d been so preoccupied doubting that she’d get through that she hadn’t even contemplated what she’d say if she did. “Hey, Buff! Listen, can you remind me why you went to Cleveland again?” Dawn winced, even as she was saying it.

There was a long pause. A long, long pause. For a second, Dawn thought that Buffy had hung up. Then she said “Who is this?” Except, this time, her voice was different. Oh, it was still guarded, still cautious. But now there was something, some note of fragility to it as though the speaker might just shatter, depending on the answer.

“Oh, right, because you won’t have my caller ID. It’s Dawn.” Dawn said. Then, when Buffy didn’t immediately reply, she nervously added “You know, your sister?” If Giles hadn’t even been aware that Buffy had a sister, maybe she didn’t, not in this reality. Which was a thought that Dawn was really, really not going to dwell on.

“You can’t be.” This time the voice was flat, as though everything, every drop of emotion had been wrung from it.

“Sure I can.” Dawn said, wondering why Buffy was getting so hung up on the fact that it was her calling rather than the fact that she seemed to have completely forgotten why Buffy was in Cleveland.

“My sister died. My sister died more than three years ago. I don’t know who you are, or what you're trying to do, but you are not my sister.” Buffy said.

But she didn’t hang up. Dawn wondered, if Buffy had died and then someone who sounded like her called up, wanting to talk as though nothing had happened, would she hang up? Or would she keep talking, desperate to cling to whatever faint remnant of her sister there might be? The latter, she was sure.

And then Dawn realised what she’d just heard. Fully realised it. Automatically, without even intending to speak, she said “How did I die?” She was dimly aware of Oz and the others looking at her strangely, but she didn’t care. Her entire world had shrunk down to the voice on the other end of the line, the voice that was telling her that she had died of an overdose in the psychiatric ward back in LA, that she been dead for years, that she had had a funeral, that she was dead…

“No, I didn’t.” Dawn said numbly. “Didn’t even come close to doing that. Not there. I don’t think I even could. The meds were too tightly regulated for that. I…I didn’t die.”

“Yes, you did. You want to know why I went to Cleveland? When… when you- when she died, Mom broke off her deals with the gallery in Sunnydale. She wanted to get the out of California, get out of the state. We moved half way across the country because we just couldn’t face the fact that you were dead. We had to get out. We moved to Cleveland because you were dead, and we needed a new start. You were dead. You’re dead. I don’t know what this is, or why, but you are dead. I was at your funeral. You are dead!”

Dawn couldn’t focus on the words. All she could hear was Buffy’s tone. It started out flat, as though she was actively working to keep her emotions, to keep everything out of her voice. But as she went on, her voice got higher and she sounded as though she was going to cry, or throw something, or both. She sounded as though she was barely stopping herself from doing something… drastic. Dawn didn’t know what. Couldn’t even begin to guess.

Dawn couldn’t think about what Buffy was saying. The words were just the wrong shape to fit into her thoughts. She couldn’t concentrate on the fact that Buffy was telling her that she was dead, that she had been for years. She heard it, and remembered it but it didn’t sink in.

Instead, all she could think was that she had been dead for more than three years, and just her voice on the other end of the line was enough to make Buffy break down like this. Buffy, who fought vampires every night, who didn’t even really believe that Dawn was Dawn, was acting like this just because of her voice. A voice that she hadn’t heard for three years.

Three years, and Buffy was still mourning her. Still raw.

Dawn couldn’t deal with that. Couldn’t even begin to try. She felt shut down, as though everything, all her emotions, all her thoughts were shut in a little box and then buried so deep that they’d never see the light of day. She felt like she was just a stone, sitting there, listening.

Eventually, she managed to say “Buffy. Come to Sunnydale. As soon as you can. We need to talk.” Dawn was dimly surprised by how level her voice was. She felt as though it should be raspy, and hoarse, as though she hadn’t spoken for a long time.

As though she hadn’t spoken for more than three years.


	31. Chapter Thirty-One

Dawn handed Oz his phone, completely ignoring the strange looks that she was getting from everyone else in the room, and turned to the person who had killed her and asked “Why did you wish that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale?”

Of course, Cordelia hadn’t mean to kill her, hadn’t known that a simple wish could result in such dramatic changes. None of them even understood how it could. But the fact was that Cordelia had killed her, had created this whole alternate timeline where everything was much, much worse, simply because she didn’t want Buffy around. Simply because, here and now, Dawn was dead.

“Because she made Xander cool.” Cordelia said, as though it was obvious and didn’t really need to be said. “Didn’t I say that already?”

Dawn realised that she had. Dawn had completely forgotten, in the wake of the phone call.

Giles was looking at her as though he was about to say something, and Dawn realised that if he asked her what she’d been talking about with her sister, then she would probably fall apart. Which wasn’t a good thing, especially not in a town run by evil vampires.

So Dawn pre-empted any questions he might ask by saying “Buffy’s coming. She’s going to be here as soon as she can.” Well, she hoped that was true. Dawn had hung up after telling her to get here, because she hadn’t been able to continue that conversation. If she had, it would’ve made it real, she would actually have had to take in the fact that she had died. No. Not died. Killed herself. Because you don’t get an overdose in a psych ward by accident, especially not a lethal one. And Dawn didn’t want to deal with the implications of that. And, to forestall the inevitable questions about the rest of the conversation, Dawn asked “Can I have some paper? And a pen?”

Without waiting for an answer, she took them from Giles’ desk and left the room, almost at a run.

~*~

There were a lot less classes than Dawn was used to seeing. She supposed that having vampires running the town kept the population low, if all the memorial plaques around were anything to go by. The doors weren’t locked, either. Dawn couldn’t help but think that that was so that students had somewhere to run too, if they needed to.

So Dawn went into an abandoned classroom and sat down at a desk. Putting the paper in front of her, she wrote ‘Then’ in the top left corner, and ‘Now’ in the top right. After some thought, she drew a line between them.

Okay. That was basic enough. The arrow of time was a fairly well known concept. Time only flowed in one direction, at least in the macroscopic world. Things were irreversible. Things that happen now could alter the future, but not the past. A closed system always got more entropic as time went by. That was how things worked.

Dawn added the mental caveat of ‘usually’ to that sentence.

Then Dawn added a loop, starting from ‘Now’ and ending in ‘Then’, which she labelled ‘HG’. With her time machine, HG couldn’t alter the past. It had already happened. I just allowed someone to get there, so that the past could be altered in the correct ways. That was, the ways that it had already been altered. Novikov had been right. Anything that could give rise to a paradox had a probability of zero.

That made sense. The past was irreversible. Rebecca had lived that long, longer than the doctors had expected her too, simply so that the past could remain irreversible.

Dawn drew another line at the bottom of the page, which she labelled ‘Other timeline’. Whether this timeline had existed before Cordelia had made her wish or whether the wish had created it didn’t matter, not from any practical view point.

Dawn understood why Cordelia was here. If Cordelia had the power to make her wishes come true, then she would have to remember why she made the wish in the first place. If Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, then Cordelia wouldn’t have had any reason to wish that in the first place – unless Cordelia remembered the original timeline. Novikov’s principle again. It didn’t matter how the timeline itself was created, only that Cordelia was in it. Here, at least, her wish was accomplished, and she had all her memories so that she could enjoy it. Or not, as the case might be.

But there was no reason that Dawn could imagine as to why she might be here. She hadn’t made any wishes. She hadn’t done anything that might result in her jumping to another timeline entirely. She hadn’t come into contact with any artefacts, or-

Dawn turned over the page, and wrote at the top ‘Reasons I’m here’.

The first reason that she thought of was that she had teleported here. Dawn already knew that her teleporter had a tendency to act oddly. When Artie had used it while having a particularly bad bout of appendicitis, it had completely cured that. When Dawn had teleported to Sunnydale in the middle of an episode, she had snapped out of it instantly the moment she rematerialized.

Except that time that she’d teleported to Switzerland while in the middle of a manic episode, and that time the teleporter hadn't done a single thing. It hadn’t healed the scars on her wrist, either. So, whatever the teleporter did besides teleporting, the effect was unstable. At least when it came to her. It hadn’t been tested on the others.

Okay. So there was that. But she couldn’t do much with the idea that her teleporter randomly caused some unforeseen effects.

There was also the idea that, if Dawn had teleported to Sunnydale at the very instant that Cordelia had made her wish, that she just might end up in this other timeline purely because, while teleporting, she wasn’t in either timeline and so she’d ended up in this one just as easily as the other. But Dawn doubted that. The probability of that happening was so miniscule that Dawn thought that, although she couldn’t discount it entirely, she thought that she could safely relegate it to the bottom of the list.

The third idea that Dawn came up with was just as nebulous as the first and a good deal less appealing.

Dawn knew that people had died in this timeline that hadn’t died in the one she came from. The plaques in the hall were testament to that.

But none of them were the Key. None of them had some amorphous Abomination that wanted them for some as yet unknown purpose which may or may not be related to the end of the universe.

Dawn had come up with the idea that she couldn’t die before. She’d even tested it, in the middle of a particularly intense hallucination. And she hadn’t died. She’d come close, sure, but she hadn’t. She’d made her way to the Warehouse, and she’d been saved.

But she’d died here, in this timeline. And yet here she was again, not dead. Seemingly at the very moment of the creation of this alternate timeline which had been caused entirely by her death, more than three years ago.

Dawn got up and looked around for some more paper. She always felt better if she could write things down. It made things more concrete, which was helpful when you were dealing with concepts like this. She eventually found a stack of paper inside the teacher’s desk, which she brought over to where she’d been sitting.

Okay. Maybe Dawn had been looking at this wrong. Dawn drew two lines. The timeline where she was alive, and the one where she… wasn’t. Maybe Cordelia’s wish hadn’t shunted the pair of them across to the other one.

Maybe the two of them had been blended together. Dawn drew the two lines meeting up at a single point.

Then it hit Dawn, as she sat there trying to come up with a name to label this point.

She realised why the hell dimension that Buffy had gone to in LA had a gateway.

It wasn’t just so that people could pass through without being torn apart by the time difference, as she had originally thought. That was just a side-effect. It was so that the universes themselves didn’t blend together, so that there weren’t regions of fast time and slow time and every gradient in-between. It was to keep the universes separate, so that each of them could follow their own physical laws without impinging on somewhere else where they were different.

And she realised, at long last, why Joshua’s pocket dimension had been unstable. She’d had to edges of it before, she’d come so close to putting them together after her last visit to Switzerland – but she hadn’t put them together, hadn’t been in the right frame of mind. She’d been so hung up on her own teleporter and the vague disdain she felt for the whole pseudoscience of using artefacts that she hadn’t gone far enough.

Just as the hell dimension did, Joshua’s pocket dimension had different physical laws. Time ran differently. That was why someone could stay in it for twelve years and not age a single day. But, unlike the hell dimension, it didn’t have a gateway. It didn’t have a region that allowed everything that passed through it to acclimatize, so that the two universes didn’t bleed together.

A closed system always develops higher entropy. The hell dimension was one. But this one, her own universe, was part of a system that included the pocket dimension. And, over time, things did tilt more towards entropy, as the pocket dimension broke down. But it was tiny. In a universe of black holes and stars and planets that warped space-time just by being there, a tiny temporal anomaly wouldn’t do much. But it would completely destroy the pocket dimension.

Okay. The past was fixed. That had been a hypothesis for decades, and HG’s time machine had proved it. But time itself wasn’t fixed. Einstein had proved that.

So. If you take two dimensions of equal size, both of which run on vastly different times and make sure that there isn’t some kind of gateway between them that nullifies the difference and what do you get? Destruction, as things get torn apart.

But take two different dimensions of equal size that have the same times – they had even been identical, up to a little over three years ago. Add them together, and what do you get? Very little. Only a few things on a single planet would be changed. Over the entire universe, the difference would be so minor as to be negligible.

But, just as the dimension where Dawn was dead led to this dystopian version of Sunnydale, so too the dimension where Dawn was alive would alter the other one, if the two were blended. Perhaps the only difference was that she was here. Perhaps there were other, tiny little differences that she would never know. It was impossible to tell.

It was only a hypothesis, and she didn’t even know if it was possible to test it, but it fit the facts. At least as far as she could tell.

~*~

Dawn didn’t want to go back and see Giles and the others. Not just because she didn’t want to hear their questions, but because she just didn’t feel like being around people right then. At least, not people who didn’t even know she existed, and might well be different from the versions she did know anyway. Dawndid want to call Claudia, but she doubted that the version she knew was even here. If she was, if by some freak chance the blending of two timelines had brought her along too, Dawn still couldn’t contact her. Her phone didn’t work, she had no Farnsworth, no teleporter. Even if she had anything, she still wouldn’t contact her. Dawn had heard how Buffy had sounded on the phone. How would Claudia be? She’d once tried to kill herself because Dawn had left her. She didn’t want to face that. Didn’t really want to face Buffy either, come to think of it, but at least it would be hours yet until Buffy actually got here. If she was coming at all.

So Dawn just wandered around. The sun wouldn’t be setting for hours yet, there wouldn’t be any vampires out and about. Sure, it probably wasn’t a good idea, but then given what was going on it didn’t even seem worth worrying about, not when Cordelia seemed to be able to alter reality with a wish.

Dawn wandered around Sunnydale. She stopped briefly outside the house that, perhaps in a different reality, had been owned by her mother. It was empty here. There was no sign that anyone had lived in it for years and years.

Dawn wanted to get out of this place. It was wrong. This wasn’t how things should be.

But she couldn’t go. Not yet. She wasn’t even sure if leaving was possible, if she could back to her reality or if her reality could be disentangled from this post-apocalyptic one.

Dawn was quite surprised by how late it was. Suddenly it seemed as though the sun was just about to go down. Not a good time to be out and about. Besides, Buffy should be here soon, probably, maybe.

~*~

Dawn knew nightmares, knew them well. She’d had more than her fair share.

She knew she wasn’t in one, when she walked back into the library to see Buffy waiting there, to see her face covered in… some kind of emotion, Dawn didn’t know which.

She wished she was, a man with a pale, ghoulish face and red eyes appeared out of nowhere from behind Buffy and snapped her neck as easily as Dawn might swat a fly. He looked almost disappointed when Buffy toppled over. “You know what?” The Master said conversationally, as though he hadn't just dispassionately murdered someone. “When I heard the Slayer was coming, I thought surely she’d come to disturb my plans. Maybe that confounded Mayor was trying to mess with me. But no. she just wanted to see her sister.” He grinned at Dawn, and then it turned into something else. There were too many teeth and not enough mirth for it to be a grin. “Still, at least she had that before she died.”

Dawn tried to run, she did, but then the Master was there and he shoved her aside as though she was nothing. As she fell, she saw Giles and Oz and the other two swing into action, recovering their shock from the suddenness of the assault only for some vampires to drop on them, wrestling their weapons away and sinking their teeth into their throats. Dawn saw Cordelia try to run, and the suddenly Xander was there in front of her.

And then Dawn hit the ground and roll away under a table, and so she didn’t see Xander look Cordelia up and down like she was just a piece of meat. “Good to see you, Cordy.”

Cordelia tried to back away, but Xander just kept ambling forward, the same nonchalant half-smile not wavering from his face. “I like your necklace. It looks… expensive. Not like you, although I guess it took a lot of money to look so cheap.”

Xander’s hand shot out and Cordelia flinched, but he just gently took hold of the necklace as though he didn’t have even the slightest of desires to tear her throat out and drink her blood. “Yes, I don’t really think it suits you. Why don’t you take it… off?”

Dawn was crawling under the tables, wondering why the Master hadn’t already thrown the tables aside and killed her. She realised why when he knelt down in front of her and said “Boo.” Dawn screamed, and banged her head on the table as she jumped. The Master grabbed her hair and began dragging her out.

Xander leered at Cordelia and then tore the necklace from around her neck and crushed it in his hand.

And then suddenly Dawn was standing in front of the door to the library, just as she had been that morning, except now she was bruised and her scalp was aching and she was shaking and just couldn’t stop.


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Except that she wasn’t.

Oh, she was definitely standing in front of the library, that much was for sure. But once she realised, fully realised that she was there and not seconds away from being slaughtered by a mass-murdering vampire, she realised that she wasn’t bruised. Oh, her scalp ached, but not because she had just been dragged by her hair. It was more a memory of pain, a lingering sensation that was fading even now. The brain can’t remember physical pain.

But it can remember the fear, the dread and the despair that surrounds it, and that was more than enough to leave Dawn as a shaking wreck.

Dawn didn’t have a watch. She wasn’t interested enough in what time it was to bother carrying one. But, right now, it meant that she couldn’t tell if it was morning, as it had been when she had last stood here, or if it was the evening, as it had been when she had been about to be killed. She refused to think about the other things that had happened right then. She couldn’t deal with that right now.

It felt like morning, though. The sounds of the school sounded like those of the morning. Sunnydale High wasn’t the kind of school that stayed busy until late in the evening. It seemed to Dawn that that supported the idea that two timelines had blended together, rather than she and Cordelia having shifted into a separate one. After all, if they had been shunted into a different timeline, spent a few hours in it and then been shunted back, why would they have gone back in time? It didn’t make sense. But if her timeline and the timeline where she was dead had blended together, then of course she would revert back to now the moment they disentangled. After all, those hours had been a product of the combined timeline – in this timeline, and the other one, they had never actually happened.

Which meant that, there, Buffy was still alive, in Cleveland, and had never been troubled by her long dead sister. And the Buffy here was also still alive.

Dawn sagged slightly in relief, and then walked into the library.

There was only Giles in it. He was poring over some musty old book. There was no sign of Oz, or the other two people that she hadn't recognised. There were no crossbows in sight, pointed at her or not.

“Hi, Giles.” Dawn said. Even though she was sure, or as sure as she could be, that she was back in her own timeline and everything was exactly the way it had always been, there was still an uncertain note in her voice. She didn’t think that she could deal with it if he didn’t recognise her.

Giles jumped slightly. He obviously hadn’t heard her come in. “Good morning, Dawn. Buffy’s not here yet. I rather suspect that it’s too early in the day…”

“Actually, I came here to talk to you.” Which was true, partly. While Dawn had come to Sunnydale to get away from the Wrath of Artie, she did want to talk about Giles. She had wanted to learn more about prophecies, how they worked and who wrote them, ever since she had realised that the Regents had at least some knowledge of the future, and that HG Wells might be the very same Master that was destined to fight and kill Buffy.

Although, she had to admit, it was a little difficult to imagine the woman who she had spent most of a night teaching physics to being in the same league as the vampire that she had just seen kill Buffy. Even if it was a Buffy who would, now, never actually exist.

“Of course.” Giles said, obviously puzzled. “What can I help you with?”

“Is there some… magical way to mess around with time? I don’t mean travelling through it. I mean like full-on altering the past. Or combining timelines. Or shunting someone into different timelines. Can magic do that? Or some kind of demon?”

Giles frowned, and as he did Dawn was beyond glad that she had told all of Buffy’s friends that she was bipolar rather than schizophrenic. For all the misconceptions that surrounded mental illness, bipolar disorder didn’t have nearly the same associations with hallucinations and general instability that schizophrenia had. Before Stirling had told her, Dawn hadn't even heard of bipolar hallucinations. If she’d brought this up to someone who thought that she was schizophrenic, they’d probably have just looked at her sympathetically and then entirely dismissed everything that she said.

They wouldn’t have just looked at her with a confused expression and then said “Do you have some context?”

Dawn took a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, I know. But you can ask Cordelia. She’ll back me up.” Dawn paused, not quite sure how to start. “This isn’t the first time that I’ve walked into the library today. Except, when I walked in earlier – or the same time, I guess, only in a different time… oh, never mind that. Last time I walked in you pointed a crossbow at me. You and Oz and two others. Buffy had moved to Cleveland. Not moved from here to Cleveland, I mean, but never moved here in the first place. You had never met her. She went there straight from LA, because… anyway. Cordelia and I were in some hellish timeline where Buffy wasn’t here and the Master had taken over the town.”

Giles looked like he couldn’t be more shocked if he got struck by lightning. Dawn guessed that maybe it was a little bit early in the morning to spring the multiplicity of time on someone. “You’re saying that you and Cordelia somehow managed to find yourselves in a parallel universe, and you’re wondering exactly how you got there.” Giles blinked. “I cannot quite believe that I just said that.”

A parallel universe? Dawn hadn’t thought of it like that, but she guessed it was an accurate a term as any, even if did come with a whole load of science-fiction connotations. “Sure, let’s go with that.”

Giles looked at her thoughtfully. Despite the somewhat wacky premise, Dawn could tell that he was warming to the idea. Who didn’t want to ponder whether there were alternate realities out there, and how to get to them? “Well, there are many hell dimensions. Some of them are quite well documented. They would probably be reachable via the Hellmouth, but if that had been active I imagine that the effect would be more… widespread. I doubt that it would have affected only you and Cordelia. There are also some higher planes of existence, but those are somewhat more… nebulously defined. I must say that I haven’t heard of travel between different versions of the same world. At least, not outside of fiction.”

“If it helps, Cordelia said that she made a wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale. Next thing we know, she never has. I'm guessing that wishes don’t normally come literally true. Not even on the Hellmouth.”

“Wishes…” Giles trailed off and then looked at the library. “That sounds familiar. I’m sure I saw something…”

Recognising the expression of someone who is going to be lost in their research for the next few hours – she’d worn it often enough herself – Dawn resolved to leave him to it and go and find Buffy.

She didn’t even make it was far as the doors when Cordelia came barrelling through. “Giles, what the hell is going on?”

Giles looked up. “You visited some parallel version of Earth and you’re wondering how you got there and why you came back?”

Cordelia looked somewhat taken aback by that. “Yeah. Um. How did you…” she looked around and seemed to see Dawn for the first time. “Oh.”

“Hi Cordy.” Dawn said with a cheerful wave. The other timeline had been somewhat… traumatic, and Cordelia hadn't had the advantage of trying to figure out how time worked and how the timeline they had been in had come into existence. She needed to know that it had never happened, and now never would. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Cordelia replied automatically. “I just need to know why all that… craziness happened and what I can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Well, you can start by not wishing that my sister never comes to Sunnydale, for a start.” Dawn said, and despite herself her voice sounded cold. She wasn’t sure whether the timeline where she was dead had been created entirely by Cordelia’s wish, or if it had already existed but had blended with this one, but the fact was that she did not need to know that there was a world that existed (or had existed, however briefly) where she was dead.

Cordelia looked like she was going to say something snappy and indignant, but then caught Dawn’s expression and looked away. “So, Giles, any ideas?”

“Hmm?” Giles said, not looking up. He obviously hadn’t paid even the slightest bit of attention to what they were saying.

“Guess that’s a no.” Cordelia muttered.

~*~

Buffy, for all her admirable qualities, was not the kind of person that was early to school. Or even on time. While she would happily stay in the library training long after all the other students had left for the night, and then spend the most of the rest of the night out on patrol, she was most definitely not a morning person.

So, Dawn knew that she had a better than average chance of meeting Buffy at her house before she left for school, doubtlessly at least ten minutes late.

Dawn knocked on the door and called “Mom? Buffy? Anyone there?”

Joyce opened the door, smiling. What mother wouldn’t when their oldest daughter dropped in for an unannounced visit? Dawn didn’t want to think about the fact that, somewhere, somewhen, there was a version of her mother who would never smile like that again. “You know, if you’re going to drop in like this we should get you a key.”

Dawn blinked. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that she was spending that much time here. Then she blinked again, because for the first time in a long, long while the word ‘key’ didn’t instantly fill her with revulsion. “Sounds like a good idea. Is Buffy around?”

Joyce rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Of course. You know, I just can't seem to get that girl out of bed in the morning. I'm honestly thinking that I should just throw water on her to shock her out of bed.”

“Mom!” Buffy yelled from inside. “I can hear you, you know!”

“I know sweetie, I know.” Joyce called back.

Buffy appeared in the doorway. “So, what’s up?”

Dawn shifted uncomfortably. There was a lot of difference between hearing Buffy’s voice and knowing intellectually that she was alive and then seeing her right in front of her, and her not having even the slightest idea that Dawn had met a version of her that had lost a sister, only to find her again and get killed the same day. “I… I was hoping I could convince you to play hooky.”

“Well, you know me, I’m always up for… I mean I would never play truant, and how could you ever suggest such a thing? What kind of older sister role model are you meant to be, anyway? Shame on you!”

“Uh, Buffy? You know that I know you burnt down the gym at Hemery and fight vampires every night, right?” Joyce said fondly, and Buffy was somewhat surprised that Joyce had come far enough that she was able to joke about something like that.

“Riiight.” Buffy nodded. “So you’re okay with me bunking school for the day?”

“I also know that your sister is a spy who has made time out of her probably busy schedule to spend time with you.”

“I wouldn’t say I'm a spy exactly…”

“Okay, so my spy sister is taking the Slayer out of school. That’s cool.” Buffy nodded cheerfully.

“So, you want to get breakfast or something? I skipped mine. Unless you already ate…”

Buffy shrugged. “I could eat something. Although you should know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you shouldn’t miss it.”

Dawn decided not to mention that she had missed breakfast because her boss was angry at her because she had taken apart a microwave to show to a hundred-year-old female possibly villainous HG Wells. For obvious reasons.

~*~

“So.” Buffy said, through a mouthful of waffle. “What’s up? I mean, really? Because I don’t think that you came down here just so I could play truant for a day. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but you're like academically perfect. It’s not like you.”

Dawn paused for a second. She hadn’t actually been planning on telling anyone anything much about the other timeline. She had been intending on just saying that it wasn’t very nice and that was about it. Much like Buffy had, after her time in that hell dimension in LA.

But, sitting there watching her sister inhale waffles at supersonic speeds, she didn’t think that she could get away with it.

“I actually have something to tell you. I want to say, before I start, that it sounds crazy. Not, you know, I’m a Key crazy but just straight up unbelievable. But Cordelia will back me up.”

“Sounds ominous.” Buffy said in a neutral voice. “Although I’ve got to ask… Cordelia?”

Dawn nodded absently. “Today, I was in an alternate timeline. With Cordelia. One where you had never come to Sunnydale. You and Mom moved from LA to Cleveland. And so the Master never got stopped, and he took over the town. It wasn’t… it wasn’t a very nice place. Because she made a wish that you never came here, because of something to do with you making Xander cool, and somehow the wish came true.”

Buffy stared at her for several long seconds before swallowing. “Okay. Questions. So many questions. Why would I be in Cleveland of all places? And how do wishes come true, and if you mention wishing upon a star, I swear… and why were you there? I mean, how did you get there?”

Dawn did not want to answer the first question. She hoped she wouldn’t have to, or that she could fudge it… so she started with the last one. “I’m not sure. I have some hypotheses, which depend on the nature of time and physics and stuff. Unless you have a lot of paper and some time to listen to me ramble, I don’t think I can really explain. I don’t know how I could, you know, prove them either, but… yeah, I have a couple of ideas. And Giles is working out how wishes can come true right now.”

It sounded vague enough that Dawn could be answering either the first or third question. Hopefully Buffy wouldn’t push.

“You said that Mom and I moved to Cleveland.” Buffy said slowly, as though she was working something out even while she was talking. “Mom and I. So where were you? What happened to you? Were you still a spy, or… what? What happened to you?”

Dawn could lie. She could lie so easily. She could say that she didn’t know. It wouldn’t be hard, and Buffy wouldn’t question that. How could she? Even here, they only saw each other at irregular intervals. It was quite possible to know where one was but not the other. In another timeline – she could lie.

And she would have, if it hadn't been for Cordelia. Cordelia was so far from being tactful and discrete that she wouldn’t be able to see them with a telescope. She wasn’t sure how much Cordelia knew – Dawn hadn't told her, but then she hadn't exactly been quiet on the phone and Buffy had been in the library before Dawn had gotten there, so she could very well know the truth. And if she did, then she would tell Buffy at some point. She was that kind of person.

It would be better if Dawn told her now, rather than have Cordelia let something slip.

Dawn sighed, and looked down at her food. She’d completely lost her appetite. “I wasn’t there, Buff. I wasn’t with you in Cleveland. I wasn’t a spy. I wasn’t anywhere.” Dawn looked up at her sister, who obviously didn’t have the faintest idea of what she was talking about. “In that timeline, Buffy, I was dead. I died, in that timeline, before you left LA. So you and Mom… you packed up and left the state, moved halfway across the country. That’s why you were in Cleveland. In that other timeline, I was dead.”

And looking at her, Dawn can see that Buffy can't process that. That she can’t handle that. And she can't blame her – she only found out about alternate timelines a minute ago and finding that in one of them she had a dead sister was kind of hard to deal with. “How?”

“An accident.” Dawn said. And that was all that she was going to say on that front. If Cordelia said anything else, then Novikov be damned she was going to go back in time and make sure she didn’t.

She guessed anyway, Dawn was pretty sure. Just because Buffy was perfectly willing to skip school and be late to classes, that didn’t mean that she was stupid. She was smart. She guessed what Dawn wasn’t saying. “An accident.” Buffy repeated numbly.

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” Dawn added suddenly. “I saw you, Buffy. I spoke to you. And you, even though you know about vampires and demons and witches, even though you know all about that, you were completely… unmanned just hearing my voice. Even though you knew that I might be a demon or something that just wanted to mess with your head, even though you knew that, you were falling apart just because I was on the other end of the phone. And I can’t have that.”

“What-“

“Buffy, I will always be your sister. You can always call me at some ridiculously early time to ask me about relationship advice, even though I have exactly zero experience on that front and no real prospects of getting any.” Dawn paused, and rubbed her wrist absently. “But. I am not stable. I know that I'm not schizophrenic, that I'm better than I was, but… sometimes, you might call me and I’ll feel so low that I won't even be able to lift the phone. Or I’ll be so manic that I… I’m not the most available person, Buffy. As much as I always want to be there for you… I don’t think I can. I am your sister, but I am not the older sister role model that you want. And I'm sorry for that.”

”So, please. Don’t leave again.” Suddenly Dawn was reminded so forcibly of her conversation with Claudia after they left the psych hospital that it hurt. She and Claudia… they were co-dependent messes that seemed to stop functioning without each other. Even Myka had seen that.

And she doesn’t want that for Buffy. Buffy is the Slayer, and she has enough to deal with without having an unstable older sister. She doesn’t need to have someone in her life who might just up and disappear. She’d overdosed once, in this timeline. Almost fatally. Sure, she was doing better… but in her life, in her line of work… she could plummet downwards again, so hard that she’d hit rock bottom and keep on digging.

That cannot be Buffy’s life. She won’t have it.

Buffy’s eyes were shining, and she looked like she was about to cry. But she didn’t. Instead, she just said “You know, you’re a real idiot sometimes. Call me when you pull you head out and… call me.”

And then she left, and Dawn is alone staring at food that she doesn’t really want.


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: the girl from the alternate reality that I mention in this chapter is called [Nancy](http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Nancy_\(Wishverse\)), and really does seem to only exist in the alternate reality.

“Vengeance demons.” Giles said suddenly.

Dawn blinked. She’d been wondering if it would be better if she went back to South Dakota, because it seemed as though Giles was going to take a _really_ long time to find out what had happened. In fact, she would have gone already if it wasn’t for the fact that she wanted to know exactly how the alternate timeline worked – that, and she’d rather put off getting yelled at by Artie.

“Okay. What do they do?”

“Well, simply put, they grant wishes. Vengeful wishes. Cordelia does seem to fit the profile of a scorned woman, which seems to be the kind of person that a vengeance demon would seek out.”

“And how does it work, this wish granting thing? I mean, Cordelia wished that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, but reaching back in time to make sure that didn’t happen would cause a paradox, right? That’s why Cordelia remembered what had happened, which she wouldn’t if there was time travel involved. So did they just shunt us to another reality, and if they did then was it made by the wish, or was it already there? And why did I go?”

“All very good questions.” Giles said without looking up. “However, short of finding a vengeance demon and asking them exactly how these things work, I don’t think that we can know the answer. This is magic we’re talking about. It doesn’t usually follow obvious rules.”

“Are you telling me that I’ve been waiting here half an hour just to hear that there are demons who grant wishes? I could’ve figured that out from, you know, the fact that one of them granted a wish.”

“If you’re after the theory, might I suggest that you tell me in detail what you saw? I think that that might be helpful. After all, it is rare that a Watcher has a chance to talk to someone who has experienced a wish and, uh, is willing to talk about it.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If Giles was really that keen to interview someone, then he could talk to Cordelia. Dawn wasn’t going to get back into it. “Actually, um, I might have an idea. To test my theory. Sort of. But I don’t think that you can help, because, you know, you kind of live in the library and it doesn’t seem as though anyone comes in here. Like, ever.”

“Yes. You may have a point there. But could you tell me your theory first? I would me most intrigued to hear it.”

“Hold on. Once done I’ll write it all down for you. But give me a little while first. Have you seen Xander or Willow, by the way?”

“I would imagine that they’re in classes. You could ask your sister, of course. She doesn’t seem to have come in today.”

“Yeah, she’s not feeling well. I don’t mean that she’s got, like, Der Kindestod level ‘flu. Just a general cold, you know. I guess even Slayers aren’t immune to that.”

“I see. Well, I believe that their classes end in about ten minutes, and I suspect that they’ll come in here. If you wouldn’t mind waiting, I'm sure they can help you with… whatever your question is.”

“Right!” Dawn said brightly.

~*~

“Hey, G-Man.” Xander said cheerfully. “You see Buffy today?”

“She has a cold.” Dawn answered.

“Oh. Too bad.” Willow said.

“At least she missed that history test… which isn’t a good thing, of course. What am I saying? She missed a test! That’s terrible!”

“Right.” Dawn smiled faintly. “You might want to work on that enthusiasm you have there. Then you might even fool someone one day.”

“I can safely say that no one will ever believe that I'm enthusiastic about a test.” Xander replied. “Anyway, if Buffy isn’t around, what’s with the meeting? Did something happen?”

Willow elbowed him. “You know, that thing that Cordelia talked to us about?”

“Oh, that.”

“Exactly.” Dawn said. “Uh, would you mind if I asked you guys a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know a tall guy, kind of beefy, dark hair?”

“Guessing you’re not talking about me.” Xander said. Dawn didn’t smile. “Yeah, definitely not talking about me.”

“Kind of flat faced. You know, the kind of guy you always see hanging around in some kind of sports jacket thing?”

“Oh. Larry.” Willow peered at Dawn. “Why are we talking about Larry?”

“Hold on!” Xander help up his hands. “I'm still not sure we’re talking about Larry.”

“We can point him out later, if you need us to.” Willow said helpfully.

“Thanks, that would be great. But he’s definitely a guy that exists, right?”

“Yeah, maybe a little more than I’d like.” Willow murmured.

“Okay. How about a girl with dark hair, um… sheesh, I’m really not good at describing people, am I? Okay, dark hair, straight. Kind of tall, maybe about 5’9”. Pale.”

Xander turned to Willow. “Amy?”

“No, she’s not that tall. Can’t think of any girls with dark hair who’re that tall.”

“So, you don’t know her?”

“Don’t think so…” Willow said. “But, um, without a name it might be – oh! I can show you the school register!”

“You mean hack the school register, right?” Xander said. When Willow elbowed him again, he added “Not that there’s anything wrong with a little hacking every now and then.”

“That would be great! I have a theory about, you know, the thing that Cordelia told you about, but I need to see if these people actually exist first.”

~*~

There had been two people in the alternate timeline that Dawn hadn’t recognized.

One of them, it turned out, had indeed been Larry.

The other didn’t exist. Or, at the very least, wasn’t a student at Sunnydale High. Given that she had been in the library early in the morning and had definitely been in the right age bracket to be a student, that was odd.

After Willow got access to the registers of other high schools in the area, Dawn found that she wasn’t there, either.

“So, Giles, these vengeance demons – do they only grant wishes? I mean, they don’t take the opportunity to create entirely new people out of thin air, right?”

“As far as I can tell, they grant the wish according to the exact wording. Nothing more, nothing less. So if Cordelia wished that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, then the wish would have ensured that that happened. As far as I can tell, of course. I can always ask Jenny if she can find something on her… _computers._ ”

Which meant that Dawn had her proof. 

If someone existed in the alternate timeline that didn’t exist in this one, then it meant that the demon hadn’t rewritten history. The point of divergence had only been a few years ago – not nearly enough time for someone to be born and get to the age of 18 or so.

It also meant that they hadn’t been shunted into an alternate universe where the only difference was that Dawn had died, prompting Joyce and Buffy to move to Cleveland. Again, her death couldn’t possibly have prompted the sudden existence of an entirely new person. 

And if vengeance demons only granted the exact wording of a wish, then there was no reason for one of them to create an entirely new person. That person hadn't had any hand in making Buffy go to Cleveland instead of Sunnydale.

Which meant that she was right. The demon had melded two universes, which had some unintended side effects.

“Okay, Giles. You want a theory as to how the demon grants wishes? Here you go. Take two universes. One where Buffy came to Sunnydale and one where… she didn’t. Cordelia, for the purpose of the wish, wants to go to the one where Buffy didn’t come to Sunnydale. But you can’t just shunt someone into an alternate reality. Not without a gateway of some kind, I guess, which is why demons keep trying to open the Hellmouth rather than, you know, just casting a spell and bringing whatever is on the other side over here. So the demon took the two timelines and sort of… mashed them together. But when you take two universes and add them together, you get some differences. Like this girl I saw, who doesn’t exist here – and if the demon only grants the exact wording, then she wouldn’t in the other timeline either. That’s probably why I was there, too. Cordelia’s wish shouldn’t have affected me at all.”

Giles scratched his head. “I… see. An interesting hypothesis, certainly.”

“Theory. I think the sudden existence of a girl that counts as proof.”

“As you say. It definitely bears some thought.”

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to that because I should get back to… well, get back. So see you guys.”

Dawn left to variation on the theme of “Bye.”

~*~

Dawn didn’t have a car. Which was to say that the car which she usually drove was in LA, because she normally teleported there and then drove the rest of the way. She could, of course, steal a car. The owner would be bound to get it back eventually.

Or she could ask Joyce to borrow hers. She was her mother, after all. Mother’s let their daughters borrow their cars all the time. And, despite the time that she had spent in Sunnydale, Dawn hadn't actually seen the art gallery yet.

So she walked over.

It was nice, actually, to walk. She’d walked for hours in the other timeline, and everything had seemed so… _dark_. Even though the sun had been shining, just like it was here. There hadn’t been nearly as many people out and about, and they had all had their heads down as though they were in a hurry to get where they were going and really didn’t want to see the journey. Here, people were chatting, just walking, shopping, whatever. It was nice.

The gallery was nice too. Sure, there seemed to be more African art than Dawn would have liked, but that was just her preference.

“Dawn? What are you doing here?”

Dawn turned around to see her mother standing next to a wire sculpture that outlined a man without giving so much as a hint of detail. “I came to ask if I could borrow your car. I need to get back to LA, and, uh, I think my car got stolen.”

“Your car? You mean the car that, uh, your company gave you?”

“’fraid so. Pretty sure I’m going to be in some trouble when I get back.” Which was technically true, although not because of the reason she was implying. “Which is why I need to get back as soon as possible. If that’s okay. If not, I can take the bus or something. It’s no problem.”

“No, no, of course it’s not a problem. In fact, I needed to go down there anyway. There’s this distributor who’s having some problems understanding that I need prints rather than postcards. You know, sometimes people can be just so _dense_.”

“Really? You’re going to LA?”

“I was going to go Friday, but sure, now’s as good a time as any. Besides, we’re not busy at the moment and Neal can take care of things for a day.”

“Right.” Dawn realised that she hadn’t exactly thought this through. She didn’t want to have a three-hour car ride with her mom, but she couldn’t really say no now. And even if she somehow did, then it wasn’t as if she could bring the car back anyway, what with her going to teleport to South Dakota. “Sure, when do you want to go?”

“Give me five minutes.”

~*~

“So.” Joyce said, as she turned the ignition. “Have you thought about what I was saying earlier?”

“Hmm?” Dawn frowned. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what Joyce had said to her earlier.

“You know, about getting a key. Since you seem to be spending a fair bit of time around these days.”

“Oh, that. Right. A key. Yeah. Don’t think that would be a good idea.” They’d been driving for about thirty seconds and already it was awkward. Not a good omen for the rest of the trip.

“Why not?”

Oh, there were so many reasons. Because she worked in Warehouse full of mad stuff that didn’t really make sense to her. Because she’d built a teleporter that had some unstable effects that she didn’t even begin to understand. Because at any moment she might just tip over the edge, and she didn’t want her family to see that. Because she had seen her sister die that day, because she had picked up the phone and called her. Because she wasn’t cut out to be in the field, not like her sister, and if she stuck around then she just knew that she was going to get her killed.

“Work.” Dawn said, and hoped that that was reason enough.

“Of course.” Joyce drove on in silence for several long seconds, and Dawn began to hope that that was the end of the conversation. “You know, I spoke to Buffy today. After your breakfast.”

“Uh huh.” Dawn said noncommittally, really hoping that Joyce would stop talking.

“She seemed to think that you had some hare-brained idea that you shouldn’t see her as much. Or something. She wasn’t particularly clear.”

“Yeah, I said I wasn’t going to be as… available.”

“ _Why_?”

Dawn sighed, and rubbed her temples. “I saw her die today. I don’t mean a hallucination. Someone else saw her too. It’s kind of complicated. Alternate reality. But I saw her die because of me. Because I called her, and she came running, because I’m her big sister and that’s what she does. And if it hadn’t been for me, she would have been fine. She’d have been _alive_.” Dawn didn’t add that she had been dead herself in that timeline. That Buffy had been filled with such heartache even then, years after her death. She didn’t mention that she had overdosed before, and had nearly died, and she didn’t want to put Buffy through that. So better to distance herself now, be more unavailable now.

To her surprise, Joyce took the news rather calmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and to be honest I don’t really want to. But you can’t blame yourself because Buffy came when you called. It isn’t your fault. Blaming yourself is stupid.”

“Look, Mom, you _know_ what she does is dangerous. And look at me. I might be stable now, but… say you did give me a key. Say I was at home, and I… I would put her in danger if I was around, Mom. Can’t you see that?”

“Can’t you see the way her face lights up every time you come home?”

“It’s not worth it. She got on fine while I was, uh, while I was in the hospital.”

“You didn’t see her. You didn’t see us.” Joyce said flatly, and it was clear that there was nothing more to be said on that front. “Dawn. You're my daughter, and Buffy’s sister. Even if you, I don’t know, were an international assassin wanted in 50 different countries, we’d still want you at home. We love you.”

“I know.” Dawn said so quietly that she wasn’t heard over the engine. “That’s what I'm afraid of.”

“What was that?”

“I’m just going to hurt you guys if I'm around.”

“Someone once told me that I shouldn’t hide from things that scare me.”

“Scare me? What? What’s scary here?”

“Us. Me and Buffy. We… we kind of abandoned you, when you… when you needed us. We went to Sunnydale and you, uh, didn’t. I didn’t even visit you. We ran away because we were scared and – you know all of this. I said it before. And you think that if we let you in again, that we’ll, I don’t know, freak out and run again. But we won’t, Dawn. We’re not the same people we were. I mean, I know Buffy’s the Slayer now, and you’re not, well, you know, and we know more about… everything.”

Dawn didn’t answer. She just sat there and stared out of the window, eyes vacant as she watched the landscape pass by. How could she explain that she was scared that at some point she was going to die, and that Buffy, that her family weren’t going to recover from that? How would you explain that to someone?

She was right.

The drive was incredibly awkward.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Four

Artie was already talking as soon as Dawn arrived. She got the impression that he had probably been talking since she had left, and going by his expression and the angry hand movements he wasn’t going to be stopping any time soon. Certainly Myka, the only person visible, had a look of someone who had drawn the short straw. Presumably everyone else had bailed to get away from Artie’s ire.

Artie was talking. Dawn wasn’t listening. Honestly, she thought that she could probably parrot back to him what he had said even though she didn’t actually have a clue what he had said – it was probably that predictable. Dawn found that, not only could she not bring herself to focus on what he was saying, but neither could she bring herself to care.

Suddenly, in the middle of Artie’s tirade, Dawn said “Myka, can I talk to you?”

“Excuse me? _I’m_ the one talking right now.” Artie said irritably.

“I noticed. So, Myka?”

“Look here-“

Dawn turned to Artie. “What? Are you going to tell me that I'm irresponsible? That I shouldn’t talk to HG, even though she was cleared by the Regents? What are you telling me, Artie? I tried to talk to her. That’s all. We talked, and there was some science, and that was about it. And for some reason you’re angry about that. Honestly, I think it’s just because you're a great big grump. That’s fine. You're allowed to be grumpy. But you can’t just stand there and take it out on me. She’s here, Artie, and I’m not going to shut her out just because you don’t like her. She saved Claudia’s life. That makes her okay in my books.” Dawn took a breath, her first since she had started talking. She was aware that she hadn’t had a particularly good day so far, and she was probably taking it out on Artie. She didn’t care. She wasn’t just going to take being yelled at just for being _sociable_ of all things.

“Dawn, you-“

“I what, Artie? How does that sentence end? Am I not allowed to talk to people who live under the same roof as me? Thank you, I’ve tried that, it doesn’t end well. Or are you going to tell me that I’ve crossed the line? Well, what are you going to do about it? Kick me out? You do that and I take my teleporter with me. You know that you only got to that Russian so quickly because of that. Think how many lives it has saved, because Myka and Pete can get to wherever the artefact is in a blink of an eye. They kept ahead of HG without even trying. And I leave, Claudia will probably leave with me.” Dawn paused, and then smiled as she remembered the conversation she had had with HG.

_You just don’t seem like the kind of person to find themselves here._

“I belong here, Artie. I don’t care if I'm just the recluse who never goes on missions, but I belong here just as much as HG does. The pair of us can be the eccentric scientists who potter around and disassemble microwaves. We belong here, Artie, and there’s nowhere else for us to go. So while you wrap your head around that and try not to have a heart attack, I’m going to talk to Myka.”

Dawn moved off into a different room. She didn’t wait to see if Myka was following – nor did she need to, because the other woman was only a couple of steps behind her. “Are you okay, Dawn?”

Dawn shrugged. She’d seen her sister die. Even though it had happened in a universe that would now never exist, that didn’t make her feel any better. “I’m not having a mood swing, if that’s what you're asking. Just a bit of a rough day. I… kind of had a bit of a fight with my sister.”

“Right. Okay.” Myka hesitated, clearly not sure what to say next. “So, um, what did you want to talk about?”

“Uh, you have a sister, right? I mean, I remember you mentioning that you weren’t close, but, um… I was wondering…” Dawn twirled her hair around a finger as she thought. “Well, would you be close if she knew what you were doing? I mean, if she knew the kind of thing that you did for a living? Do you think that it might be better if you just told her?”

“No.” The answer came instantly. Myka didn’t need to even think about it. “The things we do here, this world – it’s not _her_ world. Even if we were close, even if… even if she got confused about me rushing off because of IRS emergencies, I still wouldn’t tell her. This has nothing to do with her. It wouldn’t matter how close we were, this world and hers just… shouldn’t mix.”

“Right.” Dawn said slowly, thinking about what Mrs Frederic had said, prohibiting her from telling Buffy about the Warehouse. She thought about the artefacts, about the sword that she had given to Buffy so she could cut that immortal demon into pieces – and how she had been feverish after that, gotten ‘flu even though Buffy never got ill, not since she had become the Slayer. She thought about how she had turned down Joyce’s offer of a key, how she had tried to distance herself from Buffy and Joyce and everything in Sunnydale… and how she had just told Artie that she belonged here in the Warehouse. Dawn smiled. “I guess you’re right.”

Myka clearly had no idea what was going on in Dawn’s head, but she smiled in response and said “You okay now?”

Dawn nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.”

Before anything else could be said, Artie called out “Myka! Warehouse! Now!”

Myka shrugged. “Looks like duty calls.”

~*~

Myka and Dawn arrived to see everyone clustered around a seated Mrs Frederic. They looked worried. “What happened?” Myka asked.

“I don’t know. One second I was talking to Mrs F, the next she started talking gibberish.” Pete replied.

“It wasn’t gibberish.” Leena said gently. “You were just saying one phrase, over and over again.”

“In Demotic.” HG added. When everyone turned to her in surprise she said “What? Ancient languages were a hobby.”

“Demotic Greek or just Demotic?” Dawn asked with interest. “What did she say?”

Claudia, who had been running a translation software, sat back in her chair and scrubbed her hands through her hair. “Nothing good. ‘The penalty is death.’ And it’s Egyptian Demotic, by the way.”

Dawn thought for a second. “ _Mooht pooh khesfet_?” Only HG looked surprised. Dawn supposed that, after randomly speaking in Turkish for a good few minutes without even being aware that you were speaking a different language, it was difficult to impress people with your language skills. For HG’s benefit, she said “I dabbled in languages for a bit too.”

“So why would Mrs F start speaking in…” Pete paused and swung around to face Myka.

“Demotic.” Myka supplied.

“Yeah, that. Do we have an artefact that would make people start speaking that? And if we do, why would it only affect her? I was standing right next to her.”

“I don’t know about artefacts that we actually have.” Claudia said from her position in front of a computer. “But we’ve just got a ping. From Alexandria. In Egypt. Apparently three American students were on an archaeological dig and, um, were mummified while they were still alive.” Claudia swallowed noisily.

Artie looked at Mrs Frederic. “Why would that affect you? Have you been in Alexandria recently?”

Mrs Frederic shook her head. “No. I certainly don’t feel as though I am being mummified.”

“So the question is, what’s in Alexandria that could be dug up, can mummify people, and can randomly make someone start speaking Demotic?” Myka asked.

Artie sat down heavily. “No, that’s not the question. The question is, what’s in Alexandria that would affect _Mrs Frederic_.”

Myka frowned. “That’s the same question but with a different emphasis.”

Mrs Frederic, however, seemed to know the answer. “It can’t be.”

Artie shrugged. “Got to admit that it looks like it is, though.”

“It’s been lost for millennia, Arthur. I don’t think that three students just stumbled across it.”

“It does seem rather unlikely, but then so do a lot of things around here. Plus I can't think of anything else it might be.”

Claudia crossed her arms. “You’re going to make us ask, aren’t you?”

“Warehouse 2.” Artie said, as though that explained everything.

HG blinked and sat up straight. “The lost Warehouse? I thought that was just a myth.”

“Look, I know you think that you’ve explained everything, but actually you kind of… haven’t.”

“Back around 30 BC, while the Romans were invading Egypt, there wasn’t enough time for the artefacts to be moved out of the Warehouse.” HG explained. “So they sunk it, instead. I’d heard that it was supposed to be somewhere near Alexandria, but no one knows exactly where. Certainly, it’s not the kind of thing that three students should be able to discover.”

“Explains the Demotic, though.” Dawn added. “That was the language spoken in Egypt at that time.”

“Wonder where they got the funding?” Claudia remarked absently. Then she spun around and began typing rapidly on her computer.

Artie turned to Mrs Frederic. “You know what this means, don’t you? If Warehouse 2 is activating.”

“I do.” Mrs Frederic replied. “However, I’m convinced that our agents will be able to resolve the situation before anything happens.”

“You’re not going to explain that, are you?” Dawn said. “You’re just going to be all mysterious.”

Mrs Frederic looked at her coolly. “I will explain, I assure you. But now isn’t the time.”

“Pete, Myka, you’re going to Alexandria.”

“I will contact the Regents and arrange for an expert to meet you there.” Mrs Frederic added.

Artie gritted his teeth and said “Wells, you go with them. We need as many people on this as we can get.” It looked like it caused him physical pain to say that.

“I’m going.” Dawn said, to her own surprise.

“No, you’re not.” Artie said instantly. “You’re-“

“I speak Demotic. I guarantee I speak it better than HG. You might need that. Plus, you know, you can’t actually stop me from going. And you just said that we need everyone we can get.”

Artie looked like he was going to protest, but he was cut off when Leena suddenly said “Let her go.”

Artie looked at her incredulously. “ _What?_ ”

“Her aura, Artie. It’s smooth. It looks, well, not normal, but… she can definitely go. Dawn, did you figure something out recently? Did something change?”

Dawn shot Myka a quick glance, and then nodded. “Yes. Yeah, I did.”

Artie sighed. “Fine. But if you get yourself killed, don’t come crying to me.”

~*~

A few minutes later, Pete, HG, Myka and Dawn were all standing in a marketplace in Alexandria. HG was looking around herself with an amazed expression on her face – she hadn't known about the teleporter.

Dawn, meanwhile, was just beginning to realise that she was on a mission.


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five

They met the expert on Warehouse 2 in the market place. He was English, a Regent named Valda. No one asked if he had already been in Egypt or if he had managed to appear thanks to the Regents creepy ability to appear and disappear, seemingly at will. Either way, he had been there long enough to arrange for transport to the site where the three students had been digging. Dawn wondered absently if he knew Giles.

On the way, he also told them what little was known about Warehouse 2, but Dawn wasn’t listening. Not just because she couldn’t even remember the last time she had left the States, or because she felt strange being out in the field after having spent literally months at a time in her room. She was trying to work out how three students had managed to get the money together to fund their dig. She’d been a student. While her dad had financed her, she certainly couldn’t say that she had had enough money to fly to Alexandria and dig for… weeks? Months? Which meant that they would have had to have had some kind of outside financial assistance.

In other circumstances, she would have suspected Radburn, but he’d been encased in bronze in the Warehouse for more than a year. Even if he had any bank accounts that were still active, he wasn’t in a position to use them. All his colleagues had scrambled after he had been put in prison – none of them had wanted to be even remotely associated with him. MacPherson was dead, and HG-

HG was asking her a question. “You built a teleporter?”

Dawn nodded. “Yup.”

“Would you mind…” HG trailed off, a grimace on her face. “I was going to ask if you would mind telling me how it worked, but I guess that if you did Artie would probably Bronze us both.”

Dawn smiled faintly, before the jeep they were in hit a particularly large bump and everyone was jolted around. “He might, but even if he didn’t, the teleporter is really, really complicated. You know how you tried to explain how your time machine works? Well, it would be like that, except that the theories are up to date and don’t seem to make sense to anyone but me. I’m the only one who’s able to build one. Anyone else who tries just… can’t.”

They hit another bump. Dawn wasn’t even sure if they were on a road anymore. She’d forgotten how much she disliked car travel. Driving from LA to Sunnydale, she could cope with. That was easy enough. Anything else was just a bit much.

HG, apparently, seemed to feel the same way. “Couldn’t you at least have used it to cut short this journey?”

Dawn shook her head. “The teleporter only works if you stand in a certain spot, and it’s one way only. I haven’t worked out how to make one that does a return trip. Unfortunately.”

They drove on. It was an unpleasant journey. It was obnoxiously hot, and the road (if they were even on a road) was absolutely awful. Dawn found herself drifting off, stuck in an uncomfortable state halfway between waking and sleeping. The journey was too bumpy for her to sleep fully, but equally it was too hot for her to do anything other than be in a stupor.

Then, an indeterminate amount of time later, they arrived. Dawn was thankful that the horrendous journey was over – she was beginning to feel more than a bit nauseated – and she continued to feel relieved right until the door opened.

She thought it had been hot in the city. She thought it had been hot in the car. But that was nothing compared to how hot it was out here, in the middle of a desert. She wondered how the others could stand it.

Still. Valda did something to door which Dawn was physically incapable of paying attention to, which got them in. Inside, at the very least, the sun wasn’t beating down on them like a hammer. It was something. Dawn would never again complain about heatwaves in LA.

They were in a corridor. There were hieroglyphs on the walls, which Dawn tried not to look at because they didn’t say anything that she wanted to read.

Dawn was so busy not looking at the walls that she completely failed to notice that when they left the corridor. She didn’t look up until Myka said “Wow.” 

It was big room, with a high ceiling. There were pillars embedded at random intervals in the floor, alongside a more regular pattern of rectangular holes.

“Mind, body and soul.” Valda said reverentially.

The moment was somewhat ruined by Dawn’s eloquent response. “Huh?

Valda looked at her, clearly irritated. “Didn’t you listen to anything I said on the way here?”

Dawn shrugged awkwardly. “Not really. Heat isn’t good for cognition.”

“All the texts mention mind, body and soul. Three tests. This is-“

A door slammed shut behind them, and the ceiling began to gradually lower.

“-the first?” Dawn said, with a sinking feeling in her stomach to match the ceiling.

“Hold on. Hold on!” Pete said excitedly. “I know this one. Pancakes!”

“ _Pete_ …”

“No, seriously! It’s a puzzle this little pancake shop used to run… you have to shift the pillars in the right order. Except this time we get to live instead of free pancake.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Dawn just stood there. It wasn’t that she was frozen. She’d heard that happened to people in stressful situations like this. Nor was it because she was having a mood swing. It was because she was felt completely and utterly helpless. This was supposed to be the mind test. That should have been her forte, the reason that she was there – but she didn’t have the faintest idea what Pete was doing. Not only that, but she just wasn’t strong enough to shift the pillars. Sure, she’s taken up running on Stirling’s suggestion, but that was hardly meant that she was up to the task of dragging giant stone pillars around. She supposed that she should be glad that Pete knew what he was doing and that the others were fit enough to help out, but all she could think about would be how much faster they could have done it if she hadn’t been there. She knew that she was unbelievably inexperienced, but she had thought that she would be at least some help. She hadn't even read the Demotic hieroglyphs – admittedly because they only said horrible things, but that had been her main reason for insisting that she come along. As it was, all she could do was try to keep out of the way.

It didn’t take long for them to solve the puzzle. The ceiling stopped collapsing, and a door at the other end of the room opened. Dawn looked back the way they came in the vain hope that the door leading outside might have opened. It hadn’t. The only way out was through.

Another corridor, more hieroglyphs. These ones more horrible than the last.

Then the corridor opened up slightly. Now there were gaps on the floor. Not particularly large gaps – even she could jump over them. If this was the body test, then it was a lot easier than she would have thought.

Then a door slid shut behind them, fire began leaping from the pits, darts began shooting from the walls and axes began swinging.

Okay. Maybe it was a _little_ bit more challenging than she had thought. Dawn looked at the wall on the off-chance that it had some kind of handy instruction manual or, better yet, an off switch. It didn’t, of course. What it did have was an ominous message proclaiming “One must die.” Dawn turned away instantly, only to see that Valda was also examining it. He seemed to be able to read it, too.

HG, meanwhile, had fired a grappling hook across the room and managed to secure to what looked like some kind of ventilation grid at the other end of the room. She rapidly slid across, her legs carefully drawn up so that they weren’t impaled by darts or burnt or cut off by axes.

Dawn didn’t watch Pete and Myka do the same. She was busy watching the passage in front of them and counting. Before Valda had a chance to follow Pete and Myka, Dawn grabbed his arm. “Wait. I’ve got it. It’s just a matter of timing.” She turned to look at him. “No one dies here.”

Valda hesitated, looked at the rope strung above his head, then nodded. Dawn kept hold of his arm and said “Move when I say. Exactly when I say. If I say duck, duck… okay?”

And they moved together, Dawn counting under her breath as ducked and jumped and ran. Dawn didn’t stop to think that there was a world of difference between working out the way through and actually getting there, though. She almost stumbled into a pit a couple of times and once she came within a hair breadth of getting impaled by a half dozen darts. Only Valda’s support and superior fitness got her through.

But they did get through, and they were all alive. Admittedly, she and Valda were both sweating and feeling mildly scorched from being so close to the fires, but still _alive_.”

The body test didn’t lead into another corridor. It led instead to another chamber, this time with a Medusa head at the other end of the room.

Although none of the people in the room knew it, the Medusa head was an artefact. Its eyes began to glow red, although no one saw that. The effect of the Medusa was to send everyone who saw it into an illusory world where there deepest desires were made real. HG, for example, was back in the Victorian era, playing with her daughter. No one noticed that the floor beneath them was gradually crumbling away, mere moment left before they were pitched to their deaths.

Dawn, unlike the others, was not transported somewhere else. She stayed where she was, in that room. But instead of the Medusa’s eyes glowing red, black smoke billowed from its mouth.

The smoke spread throughout the room, until everything was more or less invisible.

And then it spoke.

“Ah, at long last. My little Key. How long I’ve waited. I have searched for you for thousands upon thousands of years and, finally, here you are.” The smoke – the _Abomination_ chuckled darkly, the sound echoing throughout the room. The sound didn’t fade away – in fact it only seemed to grow stronger, louder, until it was deafening. Even with her hands covering her ears, the noise was more than Dawn could bear. It drove her to her knees…

And then it was over, all at once, and the Abomination said “I will use your blood to break down between the barriers between dimensions. Finally I will go home, and your tiny universe will die. How does it feel, little Key, to know that you’ll kill all your friends, your family, your entire _world_?”

The smoke coalesced into a figure. Dawn couldn’t say that it was a figure that haunted her nightmares, although it had a prominent place in them. She hadn't seen it only in her nightmares. She’d seen it when she was hallucinating.

And here it was, finally here, real and right in front of her. The Abomination had finally found its Key. Had finally found _her_.

And then, suddenly, Buffy was there. She leapt over Dawn, sword in hand – wait! Not just any sword. That was the sword so sharp that it could split light, the sword that could stop the immortal Judge.

A sword so sharp that it could cut right through the Abomination, splitting it right down the middle. The Abomination let out a wail so loud that the entire room seemed to shake… and then it faded away, as though it had never been there. Buffy walked over to the Medusa head and slashed at it, destroying it. The others in the room blinked and looked around themselves, as though for the first time.

Dawn didn’t care about any of that. All she cared about was that her sister was there, and the creature that had been tormenting her years was dead.

~*~

Myka shook Dawn gently. The Medusa’s head was destroyed – she didn’t know why – and the trance that it had put them in was ended.

But Dawn hadn’t woken up.

But, as Myka felt for a pulse, she quickly realised that that wasn’t the worst of it.

There was no pulse to find.


	36. Chapter Thirty-Six

“What are you doing here?” Dawn asked her sister. “Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but… how did you get here? _Why_ are you here?”

“In about a week, you’re going to use her time machine.” Buffy gestured at HG. “You’re going to borrow Willow’s body and tell me where the teleporter in LA is. You're going to explain everything that you’ve been doing, and I'm going to… do what I just did.” Buffy paused. “I think. It’s a bit complicated to explain, I mean, some stuff hasn’t happened yet, and-“

“So you know. About the Warehouse.” Dawn said.

“Yup.” Buffy said cheerfully. “I always thought it was weird how you always managed to show up so quickly when I called. I guess magical items help.”

“As charming as this conversation is, we are on a bit of a clock here.” Valda said pointedly. “We should probably press on.”

“Right.” Dawn blushed slightly. She had completely forgotten that the others were there. She was barely handling the fact that Buffy was there – the fact that the Abomination had just been killed was taking up all of her attention. She took a deep breath. Her lungs were tight, as though she was having a panic attack, and she felt a little dizzy.

~*~

“Claudia is going to kill us.” Pete said, while Myka tried to resuscitate Dawn. He knew that it was pointless to say, that it didn’t even begin to cover the fallout of what was going on in front of him. Just at that moment, however, he couldn’t think about that. His brain couldn’t handle it. Dawn had just… died, right there in front of them. The Medusa’s head had to have been an artefact, and it had to have affected Dawn somehow – but to kill her? He didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense. He was still focusing on everything other than the fact that that Myka had stood up, and Dawn still wasn’t breathing.

“What…” HG said. She stopped. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dawn. Dawn didn’t look much like her daughter had – Dawn was about twice the age – but she couldn’t help but feel that she had failed again. That someone else’s daughter had died, right in front of her, and she couldn’t do anything. She hadn’t been able to save Christina, and she couldn’t save Dawn either.

Then, suddenly, Dawn sat up.

Everyone flinched. HG knelt down and examined Dawn closely. She took her locket from around her neck and held it under Dawn’s nose. Nothing condensed on it – Dawn wasn’t breathing. Looking for a pulse was just as futile. Her heart wasn’t beating. Her pupils didn’t response when a torch was put in front of her. Her skin was vaguely cold to the touch - just enough to be noticeable, because she hadn't been dead for all that long.

But she was dead. Even if she had just sat up.

Myka turned to Pete. “Do you think the artefact is still affecting her somehow? I mean, the head clearly… messed with our minds a bit. It showed… things. What if it’s still showing something to her? What if we were like that, while it had us?”

Pete would like to believe that. He would like nothing more. “Look at it, Mykes. It’s broken. There’s nothing there.”

“But the mirror… the mirror was sentient. It took over Dawn. Maybe…” Myka trailed off, the irrationally fearing that if she voiced what she was thinking, it would turn out not to be true.

Dawn stood and moved over to the Medusa’s head. Her arms were unmoving by her sides, her legs were stiff and she seemed unusually rigid. Her eyes didn’t seem to be looking at anything, but she moved as though she knew exactly where she was going. The head receded into the wall, leaving behind an opening which Dawn went through.

“Maybe.” Both HG and Pete said at the same time, before following her.

~*~

Buffy moved over to the Medusa’s head and pushed it. Perhaps it was because of her Slayer strength, and perhaps it was because it was what it had been designed to do, but it receded into the wall, leaving an opening.

“How did you…” Dawn paused. “Did I tell you that was going to happen?”

Buffy nodded. “Yep. I mean no. I mean… uh, you told me not to tell you stuff.”

“Right.” Dawn said. She wondered why she had said - _was going to say_ that. Probably something Novikov related. The fact that Buffy had shown up to save her only because Dawn had already been saved and thus been able to tell her to save her suggested as much. And also gave her a bit of a headache.

They all filed through the opening, which led them to the Warehouse. It looked remarkably like the Warehouse back in South Dakota, albeit with a more Egyptian theme. The major difference was that there was a big ball of crackling energy in the distance. Dawn stared at it. Not long ago, she had tried so hard to convince herself that she wasn’t just a ball of energy. But the Abomination had just shown up, in person, and suddenly she had her proof. She was the Key. She had always been the Key.

She should be panicking about that right now, but the truth was that she just felt relief. She had proof, unconvertible truth. It was, admittedly, proof that her life was something of a lie, but that didn’t really matter. It was _proof_ , and that made things better. She was no longer crippled by uncertainty. She was no longer an either/or. She was the Key, and that was that. No more hypotheses, no more theories. Just proof, final, definitive proof.

Dawn _was_ finding it rather hard to breathe, however. There just didn’t seem to be enough air in her lungs. Her hands and feet felt cold, too. Suddenly, she was overwhelming dizzy. She staggered, and she would have fallen had Buffy not caught her.

~*~

The group followed Dawn through the opening, which led them into the Warehouse. It looked remarkably like the Warehouse back in South Dakota, albeit with a more Egyptian theme. Everyone looked at Dawn, wondering if she was going to do anything else. She didn’t. She just stood there, apparently oblivious to everything around her. Even the big ball of crackling energy in the distance.

Eventually, Valda turned to closely examine the wall. It was filled with tiny pinpricks, through which light shone. “The water-bringer.” Valda said under his breath.

“What?” Pete said.

“Did _none_ of you listen to me? All the literature talks about the water-bringer.” Valda took off some kind of necklace. It was some kind of thin cylinder made of ivory. “I think this has something to do with it.”

“Right.” HG said. “Well, I'm going to go and see what that energy ball is.”

Myka turned to her, but whatever she might have said was cut off by Pete speaking. “Hey _hey_ hey. I know this!”

By the time Myka turned around again, HG was gone. So was Dawn.

~*~

Valda, Pete and Myka were talking about some kind of water-bringer. Dawn wasn’t listening. She wanted to go exploring. “Hey, guys? I'm going to go and… look at that energy ball.”

“I’ll come with you.” Buffy said hurriedly. When Dawn looked at her quizzically, she added “Hey, I want to go exploring too.”

“I’ll go as well.” HG said after a moment. “There might be something dangerous.”

They walked on, pausing as Buffy stopped to examine every little thing. Dawn found herself once again thinking about who could possibly have funded the excavation. It was difficult. Her thinking seemed kind of fuzzy. She felt sluggish, as though there was something she was missing. She laboriously reconstructed her thoughts. Radburn wasn’t behind this. Neither were any of his lackeys. There could conceivably be someone else who had independently found out about the Warehouse, but if that was true then they would be here. They certainly wouldn’t have hired some university students. They would be here in person.

Unless, of course, that they couldn’t be. Radburn was Bronzed, MacPherson was dead – neither of them could oversee anything in person. But why would they go exploring for _this_ Warehouse? Their efforts had been focused on the one back home.

So. Someone who couldn’t be here in person, but-

Dawn stopped. Not because she wanted to. Her leg just refused to move. She looked down, tried to physically move it, but it wouldn’t budge. It just buckled, slowly, and she fell to the floor.

There was something obvious here, something she was missing, but she couldn’t focus. Everything was going dark, and all she could think of was that someone would only go looking for a trapped, hidden and nigh-impossible to access Warehouse rather than one in South Dakota that a teenaged hacker could find was if they _had_ access to the one in South Dakota.

Her last memory before everything went black was of someone whispering to her.

 _Wake up_.

~*~

There was a thump behind HG. She span around to see that Dawn had collapsed again. HG never remembered crossing the intervening distance. Suddenly she was by Dawn’s side, and she was just in time to hear her exhale.

There was no inhalation. She wasn’t breathing. She was dead, again, and this time HG didn’t think that she was going to get up. Again, HG felt helpless. There was nothing she could do. She didn’t know how to resuscitate her – she’d missed out on medical developments of the last century, she’d never learned how. She could take them back to the others, but it was too late in case. Dawn had already been dead for minutes, it just seemed as though her body had finally realised that.

There was nothing HG could do, and a young girl was dead in front of her, again. She’d failed, again. She’d left this world for more than a hundred years, hoping that by the time she got back that it would be better, but it wasn’t. It was still exactly the same, innocent girls still died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The world was broken, it had always been broken, and there was no point waiting for it to fix itself.

HG closed Dawn’s eyes and stood. She took a deep breath, and didn’t look down at the body sprawled on the ground. She turned and left.

She didn’t turn around when a voice spoke behind her. A voice so quiet that it was barely audible. It was only one word, as though the person speaking simply didn’t have the strength to say anything more. “You.”

HG didn’t turn around. She knew that she should continue on, that if Dawn was capable of speech then she was alive, and if she was alive then she was going to recover, and if she was going to recover then HG could continue on. Dawn didn’t need her. HG was, once again, the person who just didn’t seem to be capable of doing anything.

But, despite all of that, HG did turn around, and she did come back. Because she couldn’t just leave her like that. Dawn wasn’t her daughter. She wasn’t even close. Dawn was in her twenties, had her own family. She was brilliant enough to make a teleporter, she certainly didn’t need HG hanging around. But she was in pain, and that was reason enough to care for her.

Dawn hadn’t really moved. Her eyes were open, barely, and she was taking short, shallow breaths, but she was still sprawled on the floor. Even though colour was rapidly returning to her skin, that didn’t mean that she had she energy to move. HG helped her into a seated position, leaning against a pillar. “You.” Dawn said again. “You paid the students.”

HG could have denied it, of course, but there was no real point. There was no one for Dawn to tell. “I did.”

“You want something here. Like you wanted… your locket.”

“Yes.” HG said gently. After a moment, she sat on the floor opposite Dawn.

“Why?”

“Why?” It was a big question. “Because the world is broken. Because there’s something here that will… _reset_ it. Give it a chance to start again.”

Dawn looked at her for a long moment, and then started laughing. There was no mirth in it, and it sounded painful. “You think the _world_ is broken? That it needs fixing? The only thing broken is our… twisted little minds. We make things… revolve around us. Make the whole _universe_ rest on out shoulders. But we’re just warped brains in meat suits who think that everything is about us. That this is our show.”

“This isn’t… our show. It’s never been our show.” HG paused. “There’s an artefact called the Phoenix. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It means that you can't be killed by fire. People die for you, instead. But there’s still this moment, when you’re dead, and… there’s nothing. Just this vast, empty wasteland. It’s dark and…” HG paused for several seconds. “That’s what’s waiting for us, on the other side. The… abyss. But things are just as bad here. There’s so much pain and suffering and… and death. We need to start again.”

“You might not know this, but I'm crazy.” Dawn said matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure that bipolar disorder wasn’t around in the 1800s, but basically… I see things that aren’t there. I hear voices, hallucinations. I’m so… broken that even artefacts go haywire around me. I just hallucinated my sister saving me from an evil shadow thing. Sometimes I can’t even get out of bed because I feel so worthless that there’s no point me even moving. I’ve almost killed myself before. And despite all of that, I don’t plan some grand reset. Because if there’s anything broken, then it’s _me_. Don’t talk to me about some… stupid afterlife thing you saw. I once got possessed by a mirror. For all you know, the Phoenix makes you feel like you're in hell. Maybe that’s what it does. I don’t know. I don’t care. But don’t talk to me about the whole of the human race being broken. Sure, lots of them are pretty horrible, there are some real… _demons_ out there. But not all of them are bad. If you look at the world and all you see is… darkness and emptiness and whatever you said, then it’s your brain that’s twisted, it’s your brain projecting. Take it from the crazy girl. If you see something… _outrageous_ … then it’s on you.”

“I lost my daughter.” HG said simply. “I lost her, because of some greedy, _stupid_ men, who just happened to be there. I was a Warehouse agent for years. I’ve seen the dark side of people. You can't tell me it isn’t there. I’ve seen it. There’s-“

“You were the one who was shocked when I went into your room with a microwave. You were the one who wondered why I was there.”

“You were there because I scared you.”

“Yes. I was scared of you. But I still came. Even though I’d seen you kill someone right in front of me, I still… I still came and talked to you. Talked for hours.”

HG spread her arms helplessly. “Then what do I do? What do I do, Dawn? Everything in me is telling me that I need to wipe everything clean and let the world start again, but-“

“But it isn’t. I mean, not everything is. If it was, you wouldn’t have come back for me. You could have left me lying here. You could have left as soon as you saw I was okay.” Dawn looked intently at HG. “I think you _want_ someone to talk you down. I think you want someone to talk you down, because if someone can do that, then that means that you're wrong.”

“What do I do?” HG said again.

“I strongly recommend that you talk to someone. Psychiatry has advanced a lot since the 19th century. We don’t lock people up in Bedlam any more. And… you have people. That helps. A lot. Trust me.” Dawn said. “Things might be bleak, but they don’t always have to be.”


	37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

“So, let me get this straight.” Artie said. “You managed to access Warehouse accounts in order to fund a dig in Egypt to find the lost Warehouse… so that you could find a weapon of mass destruction and end the world.”

“Yes.” HG said simply.

“And then you changed your mind.”

“Yes.”

“You decided not to get the Minoan trident, the world’s first weapon of mass destruction, and instead come clean.”

“Yes.”

“ _Why?_ ”

HG wasn’t sure whether Artie was asking why she had changed her mind, or why she had wanted to destroy the world in the first place. In either case, it was difficult to answer. She had never come up with a concrete justification for either, not even to herself. She had wanted to end the world because of… pain. Her pain. She didn’t know how to explain that, not really. Not unless the other person already knew what she was feeling, in which case she probably didn’t need to explain in the first place.

So HG chose to answer the question with why she had changed her mind. “It was pointed out to me that the world wasn’t quite as dark and twisted as my own mind, and that I should seek some kind of help.” That was true, technically. It wasn’t really the _whole_ story, but how could she explain that?

She had been right there. She could have gotten the trident and gotten out. No one would have even noticed before it was too late. But she hadn’t, because Dawn had collapsed and she couldn’t bring herself to leave her there in pain. She hadn’t been able to save her daughter, even though she’d tried – oh, how she’d tried – but she just couldn’t leave Dawn there. Even though her entire plan had revolved around destroying Dawn and Myka and everyone else on the entire planet. She couldn’t stand to see her in pain.

In the end, it came down to pain.

But she could see that Artie didn’t understand, just as she had seen that Pete hadn’t, on their way back. Myka had tried, she thought, and maybe she had seen the edges of it, but that wasn’t enough. That wasn’t the whole story.

Claudia had understood, though. The moment that HG had arrived back in Univille, Claudia had hugged her. She hadn't said anything. There hadn’t been anything that needed to be said, and indeed there weren’t words to say it even if there had been. Claudia understood, and when she’d hugged her, HG had felt as though there was a great emptiness inside of her, and all she had been able to think was that she was so young. HG had spent more than a century encased in bronze, left alone with her pain, and here was this young girl who probably hadn't even had her twentieth birthday. She had her own pain, her and Dawn, and that was almost more than HG could bear.

“I don’t know what to do with you.” Artie said eventually.

“Dawn mentioned something about… therapy.” HG said, the word feeling strange on her tongue. She had been Bronzed at the beginning of the 20th century. For most of the 19th century, people with… mental disorders had been chained up, and people were allowed to come and look at them for entertainment. It hadn't been long before she’d been Bronzed that mental patients had stopped being chained and were allowed to walk outside, and even that had only really been in Europe. As far as she knew, America had still considered the mentally disturbed to be a kind of spectator sport. Of course, that had been more than a century ago and she knew that pretty much all forms of science had changed a lot since then, but it was hard to adjust to something so radically different.

Artie narrowed his eyes. “Yes, that seems like a good starting point, but what I meant was what do I do about you as an _agent_? The Regents were adamant about welcoming you - although they’re being oddly quiet right now – but how are any of us supposed to trust you now?”

HG didn’t mention that Artie had never trusted her in the first place, and had been very vocal about that. She tried not to even express it, but she wasn’t sure how successful she was. “I will happily stand down from active duty until such time as I do… _regain_ your trust. All I ask is that you don’t cut ties completely cut ties.” HG strongly suspected that she shouldn’t have said that. She didn’t want Artie to have something to hold over her head. He didn’t like her and was perfectly happy to make it clear. Even so, she couldn’t keep from adding “The Warehouse is all that I have left.”

“I’m sure it is, but-“

“She can stay.” A voice said from the door. HG didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Myka, but she turned anyway. Myka, even though her voice had sounded so sure, looked far from it. “She can have a room, stay cataloguing things… forever, if she needs to. She can use Dawn’s teleporter to go anywhere she wants. It’s not like Leena doesn’t have the space.”

“I don’t recall inviting you to this _private_ meeting.” Artie said coldly.

“You didn’t, but I wanted to… vouch for her, I suppose. You let Dawn stay, and she Tesla’d you. You gave her a chance, the least you could-“

“The situation is hardly the same. Dawn didn’t try to end the world.”

“Neither did HG. In case you didn’t notice, she turned herself in. At the very least, she can consult. She’s got plenty of experience.”

“I’m aware of that, thank you.”

“Then what’s the hold up? It’s not like we’re a massive operation. What’s wrong with bringing in another person?”

“Besides the fact that she's dangerous?” Artie said pointedly.

“Thank you, Myka.” HG said sincerely. “I fear that Artie’s decision has already been made, and there is nothing that you can say that will change it.”

“If you two are done putting words into my mouth, then maybe you’ll be able to spare a moment for me to actually _talk_.” Artie said acidly. “I haven’t made any decision. Far from it. I haven’t been able to reach any of the Regents, and even Mrs Frederic appears to be unavailable. I don’t know what to do – yet – so there’s no point leaping to conclusions. Go back to the B &B. Wait there.”

~*~

“I’d ask you how you are.” Myka said, as they walked back. “But I think that would just sound…” she waved her hand vaguely.

HG smiled, despite herself. “I’m as well as can be expected.”

It wasn’t much of an answer, and HG could tell that Myka wasn’t going to let it go. “You know you can talk to me, right? I mean, I’m not a… you can talk, you know, if you need to.” Myka didn’t say that HG had barely said anything at all on the flight back from Egypt, but HG seemed to hear what she wasn’t saying anyway.

“What is there to say?” HG said with a shrug.

“Whatever you need to say.” Myka said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Small talk. We can talk about the weather, if you like. It doesn’t matter. What we talk about isn’t the point… I just… you just need to know that I’m here if you do need to talk.”

They walked on in silence for a while longer. “I always disliked small talk.” HG said eventually.

There was no expression on Myka’s face, none at all, and yet HG still got the distinct impression that she was happy that HG had said something. “Me neither.”

“It’s either meaningless drivel or a feeble attempt to skirt around an issue that is far too important to be left unsaid.” HG looked at Myka, curious to see she reacted to that statement.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Myka kicked a pebble, which surprised HG. She had never thought that Myka was the type to fidget. “Sometimes it can be used in place of something to difficult to talk about.”

“And what, exactly, might that be?” HG said. She had been aiming for a light tone, but she fell short. There was, quite obviously, things that she could be saying if it wasn’t for the fact that they were far too difficult.

Myka paused, looking off into the distance. “There was… someone, once. His name was Sam. He died. I loved him, and he died, and it was my fault. He was shot because I was late. Just a few seconds. I go back to that moment all the time. I dream about it, about what would have happened if I’d been just a little bit faster.”

HG put a hand on Myka’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

“The point is, I know… something of what it’s like to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To not quite be able to save someone. I know what it’s like to look at the world and wonder when it stopped making sense. Because it _was_ senseless.” Myka took a deep breath. “I just wanted you to know.”

HG could have asked what had happened next, how Myka had gotten around the fundamental senselessness of the world, how she had kept going. But she didn’t need to. It was enough to know that she had, that she was still there. That was all that she needed right then. Just a tiny bit of hope.

“Thank you.”

~*~

HG wasn’t the only one who needed just a little bit of hope.

For Dawn, it didn’t come courtesy of a conversation. It came from several things that slowly came together in her head, and a great big sheet of paper.

It started when she was running over what the Abomination had said again. She knew that it was a hallucination – the other had told her that the Medusa’s head had made them see things – but she couldn’t help but dwell on the moment after Buffy had killed it, and suddenly everything had made sense.

But, at the time, and for a long while afterwards, Dawn hadn't really paid attention to what the Abomination had actually _said_. She had just assumed that it was gloating. It had certainly seemed to be gloating. It wasn’t until they’d gotten back and Dawn felt like she had space to think that she actually realised the significance of what it had said.

_I will use your blood to break down between the barriers between dimensions. Finally I will go home, and your tiny universe will die. How does it feel, little Key, to know that you’ll kill all your friends, your family, your entire world?_

Dawn knew that there were barriers between different dimensions, to stop them from bleeding together. It was why Joshua’s pocket dimension had collapsed, and why the portal to the hell dimension in LA hadn't.

She’d also had dreams where monks had said that she – said that _the Key_ was capable of destroying the universe.

A really, really efficient way to destroy the universe would be to strip the away the barriers protecting it from every other dimension. Of course, it would change those other dimensions, too – just like the altered time line where she had died and the Master had killed Buffy. But the overall effect on the other dimensions would probably be negligible. Sure, the universe was big, but spread the difference over an infinite number of alternate dimensions and the change per dimension would be almost negligible. If the Abomination came from another dimension, it would be an easy way to get back – its home dimension would be virtually the same as it always had been. Why would it care if it had to destroy a universe and slightly, ever so slightly, alter countless more?

That explained what the Key was. What it opened. It opened… everywhere, every dimension that there could possibly be.

She wrote ‘Key to other dimensions’ on the top of the piece of paper. While she did, something else occurred to her.

If it were true, if that was what the Key really was, that would explain why no one else could build a teleporter. It wasn't because it was a Hieronymus machine that only worked because she believed it did. Joshua’s teleporter had worked by shifting the subject to a pocket dimension where time (and therefore space) didn’t exist. Dawn had thought that she had made that unnecessary, that she had made a machine which just shifted you form one point to another, a straight line rather than a zigzag. But what if she hadn’t? What if she was shifting the subject through the space _between_ dimensions, through herself? What if every time she made a teleporter she was, quite literally, putting something of herself in it? It made sense. It was a hypothesis, a working hypothesis, rather than something that she just didn’t have the information to even begin to explain.

It also explained why she had been in the alternate timeline where she was dead in the first place. If she was the Key, if she was related to the space that kept dimensions separate, then she would have to be – the instant that she wasn’t, that would be the end of the universe, just like the Abomination had said. She had to be there. In every universe, there had to be a Key. Otherwise it would blend and merge with the other universes, like Joshua’s pocket dimension.

It was all conjecture, of course. There was no proof. She wasn’t even sure how there could _be_ proof, absolute concrete proof, because proving anything would result in universal Armageddon. But it made sense. It tied everything together in a way that made sense, as much as any of this could.

Even though she had no proof, even though the hypothesis relied on the assumption that she in fact was the Key, it still made Dawn feel better. At least now she was sure. She wasn’t stuck between one thing and another, as she had seemed to be so often.

She had no proof, but she could start looking. Hopefully, someday she could actually find some.

It wasn’t much hope, but it was enough.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the next installment of this series, coming soon to a screen near you.


End file.
